Learning to Live Faithfully Amid Mystery
I close this series by returning full circle to the start with additional thoughts about M. Night Shyamalan’s movie, The Village. Near the end of the story, the viewer discovers that the community was founded by people who experienced profound evil. They suffered loss, violence, and deep grief. Consequently, the world beyond their borders had wounded them deeply. I certainly understand their response. They wanted to create a safe place where those they loved would never experience the same pain again. At first glance, their vision seems admirable. Yet, as the story unfolds, we see the tragic cost of refusing uncertainty – and why living faithfully amid mystery is the only true path to freedom.
As the story unfolds, something subtle happens. Fear slowly becomes the governing story of the community. Walls grow higher. Rules become stricter. The forbidden woods become increasingly important. Life becomes organized around avoiding danger.
The village was built from love, but over time, fear began shaping how that love was expressed. As a result, coercion took control. Maybe that’s what makes the story so compelling. Indeed, it’s hard not to see something of ourselves in it.
The Desire for Certainty
Throughout this series, we explored Satan, spiritual opposition, powers and principalities, fear, evil, and the unseen dimensions of reality. Yet, one observation kept coming to the surface: human beings seem remarkably uncomfortable with uncertainty and our inability to control life. We want explanations, clarity and to know what’s happening behind the curtain.
That desire makes sense because, honestly, uncertainty feels vulnerable. Furthermore, mystery can feel threatening since the unknown naturally stirs up our imagination.
Yet, Scripture often responds to our desire with restraint. The biblical writers acknowledge mystery without fully resolving it. Similarly, they acknowledge spiritual realities without mapping every detail. They acknowledge evil without satisfying our curiosity about mechanisms working behind it. Thus, time and again, Scripture redirects our attention toward something else:
Trust. Faithfulness. Fellowship. Love. Hope.
The Temptation to Furnish the Attic
Along the way, I returned to the image of the cosmic attic. Most attics contain a few forgotten items. For instance, I purchased my home over 15 years ago, but I’ve never been up in my attic for fear of what I might find up there!
The problem begins when we start furnishing the attic ourselves. There, we store every unexplained experience, coincidence, fear, strange feeling, and uncertainty. Soon, the attic is crowded with assumptions, speculations, and inherited imaginations. It could certainly use a good purge!
Therefore, before long, we find ourselves responding not to what Scripture actually says, but to the stories we’ve constructed around what Scripture leaves unsaid. We fill in the blanks with what we wish the writers would have written. The irony is that the biblical writers seemed remarkably comfortable leaving some rooms unfurnished without needing a catch-all storage space. We, on the other hand, often feel the urge to decorate every single corner.
Evil Is Real
As I have said before, none of this means evil isn’t real. Far from it! The Scriptures take evil with absolute seriousness.
Human beings inflict terrible harm upon one another. Additionally, communities become shaped by fear, domination, greed, violence, and deception. Systems and powers can become deeply destructive, and the biblical story never asks us to pretend otherwise. Nor does it deny spiritual realities beyond our ability to fully understand.
However, Scripture consistently resists making evil the center of attention. Jesus certainly acknowledges opposition, but He isn’t obsessed by it. Instead, His attention remains fixed elsewhere:
On people, restoration, reconciliation, the Kingdom of God and on shared life.
Fear and the Stories We Inhabit
Please hear this: fear itself isn’t the enemy. Rather, fear is a normal part of being human. It helps us survive, alerts us to danger and protects what we love.
The deeper question is what happens after fear shows up. What story begins governing our attention? The truth about fear is that it’s remarkably good at telling stories. Fear explains events, redirects outcomes, and assigns meaning. It quietly teaches us where to look and what to expect.
However, left unchecked, fear can become the primary narrator of our lives. Maybe that’s what happened within the village. In my opinion, the film really isn’t about evil, but about fear.
The elders weren’t evil. They didn’t lack love. Yet, fear slowly became the lens through which they interpreted reality.
A Better Story
What strikes me most about The Village is that the turning point doesn’t come about through more control. Instead, it comes through trust. Edward Walker says of his daughter Ivy: “She is led by love. The world moves for love.”
Throughout Scripture, I see that the faithfulness of God’s people rarely emerges from absolute certainty:
Abraham leaves his hometown without a map. Israel enters a dry wilderness. The disciples follow Jesus without fully understanding where the journey will lead.
Again and again, God’s people move forward amid ambiguity. They do this not because they possess complete knowledge, but because they learn to trust. Perhaps faith isn’t about eliminating uncertainty. Rather, faith is about learning which story we’ll live into when certainty isn’t a lever we can pull.
Trusting Beyond What We Can See
I think one of the challenges of the Christian faith is that trust is normally something we learn through direct observation in daily life. For example, we learn to trust people through experience. Over time, we notice patterns, observe character, and remember promises kept… or not. Trust grows through repeated encounters. We choose to extend or withhold our trust based upon those observations.
Yet, Christian faith asks something more subtle of us. Most Christians identify God as expressed in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. However, we’re unable to see these persons expressed as one God the same way we observe a parent, spouse, friend, or neighbour. Also, I don’t think we have the knowledge and understanding to separate what God does from what unfolds through ordinary circumstances. Instead, we interpret. We assign meaning. We tell stories.
God’s people have always lived within this tension. Ancient Israel interpreted events, remembered them, and wove them into a story of God’s ongoing faithfulness. Whether walking through a dry seabed, wandering in the desert, living in exile, or returning home again, they continually asked what these experiences revealed about the God they worshipped.
Of course, we can interpret events well or poorly. We can remember selectively, tell self-serving stories, or mistake our assumptions for reality. Because the Bible contains no shortage of such examples, treating Scripture with both expectation and humility matters. God’s voice in Scripture (rhema) surprises us because:
Our knowledge is always partial and our perspective is always limited. Our interpretations remain unfinished.
When You Reach the End of Yourself
We all have varying degrees of knowledge, and each of us makes assumptions about reality. Eventually, however, we all get to the end of ourselves. When I reach that point, I often find myself returning to two specific passages:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.” — Isaiah 55:8
Here, Isaiah describes a completely different frame of reference between God and us: a different way of seeing, evaluating, and acting. Then, I turn to Paul’s words:
“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” — 1 Corinthians 13:12
While Paul uses the image of a distorted reflection in ancient bronze mirrors, I personally like the image of 20% window tint on my SUV. When I reach the end of my personal perspective, I think about those tinted windows.
From the driver’s seat, I have a clear view of what’s in front of me, assisted by my vehicle’s cameras. Yet, the view from the passenger seats is quite different. Each passenger has a unique perspective from the driver and from one another, illustrating both individual perspectives and the corporate view of a Christian community.
However, if you stand on the outside of the vehicle, the view inside is distorted and unclear. Your view might improve by pressing your nose against the glass – though don’t let me catch you doing that!
Perhaps Trust Starts Here
Humbly, at the end of ourselves – after making all the observations we can – we choose trust. We do this not by pressing for greater certainty, but by recognizing the limits of our knowledge. We choose faith not by mastering every mystery, but by acknowledging that God operates from a different logic than we do.
Fear frequently responds to uncertainty by demanding explanations. Even mild, anxious fear wants a map, a mechanism, or a reason to eliminate discomfort.
Faith responds differently. Faith doesn’t require that every question be answered before taking the next step. Instead, it remains:
Open-handed. Oriented. Willing to move forward with what we can see, even though much remains hidden.
Living Beyond the Walls
Truthfully, we’re always tempted to build walls: walls of certainty, explanation, control, and fear. Sometimes we think that if we can just identify every danger, solve every mystery, and map every corner of the unseen world, we’ll finally feel secure.
However, the biblical story points in a different direction:
Not toward mastery over the unseen, but toward trust. Not toward fascination with darkness or fear-driven vigilance. Rather, toward participating in God’s life through faithful presence.
The invitation of Scripture has never been to master what’s going on behind the “seen.” Instead, the invitation is simply to follow Jesus: to love God, love our neighbour, and participate in a community shaped by truth, hope, love, worship, and forgiveness.
In the end, this is where our entire series lands. Instead of asking, “What’s hiding in the woods?” we ought to ask, “What kind of people are we becoming while we walk through them?” Mature faith looks like moving forward when our understanding reaches its limits. That is why the image of Ivy standing with her hand outstretched in The Village resonates deeply:
She can’t see the path ahead. She can’t verify what’s around her. She can’t eliminate the danger.
Yet, she reaches anyway. She steps into the unknown not because she understands everything, but because she chooses faithfully amid mystery.