{"id":4926,"date":"2025-10-01T08:31:31","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T12:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=4926"},"modified":"2025-10-01T08:31:31","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T12:31:31","slug":"keyhole-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/01\/keyhole-theology\/","title":{"rendered":"Keyhole Theology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

The old-fashioned keyhole in a Victorian door has proven to be a wonderful plot device for novels.

Behind a closed door \u2013 whether that door leads to a drawing room, den, or bedroom \u2013 some kind of conversation is in progress.

On this side of the door there\u2019s a secret agent. Or an eavesdropper. Or perhaps just a servant or stranger who, spurred by curiosity, can\u2019t resist the temptation to take a peek through the keyhole to see what they can see and hear what they might hear.

In the typical mystery, spy thriller, or comedic misadventure, something always goes sideways.

The person peering through the keyhole can see only one person. They can hear only one-half of the conversation. \u201cThen it\u2019s settled,\u201d they might hear. \u201cEverything must be accomplished by midnight next Monday.\u201d That sounds like important information. But who<\/u><\/em> is this person talking to? And wha<\/u><\/em>t must happen by midnight Monday?

Armed with only partial understanding \u2013 but more than ready to jump to life-or-death conclusions \u2013 the eavesdropper hurries off to report what they have seen and heard, setting into motion a series of events that inevitably bring about chaos.

It\u2019s a great way to advance an entertaining story.

But it\u2019s a lousy way to cultivate a healthy understanding of God.

Author and theologian Os Guinness calls it \u201ckeyhole theology.\u201d In his book God in the Dark<\/em>, he describes \u201cthe trouble with keyholes. You don\u2019t always see enough to come to a conclusion, but once you\u2019ve seen a little it\u2019s difficult to resist trying\u2026 There are times when we see glimpses of God\u2019s ways but not enough to allow us to make conclusions about what He is doing and why\u2026 Being insistent as well as inquisitive, we refuse to suspend judgment and our wrong conclusions so misrepresent God that we end up doubting him.\u201d

We hear Jesus, for instance, make astonishing promises to his disciples at the Last Supper: \u201cAnd I will do whatever you ask\u00a0in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.\u00a0You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it\u201d (John 14:13-14).

That is deeply reassuring.

But on this side of the door, there\u2019s a child who\u2019s been stricken with cancer. And the residents of a village in Saharan Africa are starving because it hasn\u2019t rained for six months. And a disastrous war in eastern Europe just seems to go on and on.

\u201cAsk me for anything,\u201d Jesus says. So we pray and we plead. But nothing seems to change.

How can we reconcile what we have seen and heard of Jesus \u2013 and believe to be true \u2013 with the painful realities we see, hear, and experience on a daily basis? \u00a0

Guinness notes that what we \u201csee\u201d through the keyhole is never complete. We don\u2019t know the whole story. When it comes to God\u2019s timetables, it\u2019s obvious we\u2019re only guessing.

And that can lead to disillusionment.

More than a few people question God\u2019s goodness and God\u2019s very existence because they cannot reconcile what they think<\/u><\/em> they know with what they think<\/u><\/em> they\u2019re experiencing.

Our glances through the keyhole may convince us we know exactly how life should be unfolding. But then it doesn\u2019t happen that way. And we find ourselves doubting God \u2013 our incomplete picture of God \u2013 a picture that, quite frankly, deserves to be doubted because it\u2019s so far off the mark.

What can we do?

We can cultivate patience.

In this world, at least, God \u2013 for his own reasons \u2013 has not chosen to let us see and hear everything that\u2019s happening on \u201cthe other side of the door.\u201d Our resulting experiences are entirely consistent with those of the men and women whose stories are highlighted in Hebrews 11, the so-called biblical Hall of Fame of Faith:

\u201cBy faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance,\u00a0obeyed and went,\u00a0even though he did not know where he was going.\u00a0By faith he made his home in the promised land\u00a0like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents,\u00a0as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.\u00a0For he was looking forward to the city\u00a0with foundations,\u00a0whose architect and builder is God\u201d (Hebrews 11:8-10).

The text continues, \u201cAll these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised;\u00a0they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance,\u00a0admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth\u201d (11:13-14).

We don\u2019t always know where we\u2019re going \u2013 only that God assures us the journey is worth taking.

We don\u2019t aways know what God is doing (or not doing) along the way \u2013 only that we\u2019re never alone.

As Guinness puts it, we may not always know why<\/u><\/em> God is doing what he is doing.

But we do know why we trust God.

And he knows why.<\/em>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here The old-fashioned keyhole in a Victorian door has proven to be a wonderful plot device for novels. Behind a closed door \u2013 whether that door leads to a drawing room, den, or bedroom \u2013 some kind of conversation is in progress. On this side of the door there\u2019s a secret agent…. Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4927,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1010,112],"class_list":["post-4926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gods-will-2","tag-suffering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4928,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4926\/revisions\/4928"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}