When We're Ready

"I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now."
 John 16:12

As a young girl, I had many questions for my mother about life. Sometimes she would tell me, "Wait until you're older and I'll tell you." She discerned that I wasn't yet ready to receive what she had to say. I needed more maturity to comprehend it. In the Upper Room discourse, Christ had things to share with His disciples that they were not yet ready to receive. Later these things would be revealed to them by the Holy Spirit when they had the strength to bear them. In our own lives we find that God does not reveal everything to us at once. He has not told us some things out of His love for us. At some point we may be mature enough to handle it and He will tell us then. Other things He will not show us until we see Him face to face.  "Compassed with these veils of flesh and weakness, groping amidst the shadows of time, bewildered by the cross-lights that fall upon us from so many surrounding objects, we have not yet eyes able to behold the ineffable glory. . .Let us wait with patience until we are ready for the illumination. For two things go to make revelation, the light that reveals and the eye that beholds." -- Alexander MacLaren