I am spending a few days at the coast praying with some pastor friends. Most of us have prayed together for 18 years. There is a welcome rest in being on the coast where I can walk near the relentless surf.

This morning I walked down to Bella Espresso for a cup of morning coffee–a breve, sugar-free white chocolate–and then made my way to the beach to walk back to the conference center.

The morning was cold–not just chilly or crisp, but finger-numbing cold. The sky was cloudless and eternally blue. The moon hung over the western horizon against a misty purple-pink ribbon floating on a band of fading twilight grounded on the hard gray edge of the morning sea. This is the mystery moon of our ancient past. How many of our ancestors gazed up at that moon and ascribed myth and mystery to its inscrutable brightness?

Now we look at it from our enlightened vantage point and believe that there is no more mystery. We have reduced the mystery to a sphere of rock tethered to a blue world floating in eternal blackness.

But the mystery is not in the moon and stars but in the heart of God who has promised to reveal His purposes and fulfill His promise. One day he will sweep aside the boundary that separates creation and bring together heaven and earth. Now there is a mystery worth knowing!