Fish.

Everything I know about saltwater fish I learnt from watching the movie, Finding Nemo.  And watching it again.  And again.  And again.  I have always assumed that it was an accurate portrayal of life under the sea (apart from the obvious humanizing of the fish so they could talk).  On our recent holiday, I was quite tickled to see real-life Nemos and Doras when we visited the Ripley’s Aquarium in Toronto.  They look and behave just like their fictional counterparts in the Disney movie (or maybe it is the other way around).

We saw other fascinating critters as well - a fish that looked like it was wearing blue lipstick, seahorses, and sharks.  But perhaps the most stunning were the fish that live in the reefs of the world, fish that fluoresce when different bandwidths of light are shone on them, fish with patterns and colours and behaviours that for millennia no one ever observed or documented.  All this begs an important question.

“Why did God create such fascinating creatures and then place them in the most inaccessible places so no one could see them, enjoy them, and marvel at their beauty?”  If all of creation is a revelation of God (Rom. 1), then how is God revealed by hiding some of His best handiwork in the deep, distant ocean?”

This isn’t a non-nonsensical fire-starter question for hypothetical, non-reality philosophical and ethical debates. (You know the type of question - like, “If you are on a lifeboat with five other people and there is only enough food for four, what do you do?”)  This is a legitimate question.  “Why DID God put some of the greatest marvels of His creative handiwork beyond our scope of observation?”  This is more than just a philosophical issue;  the answer to the question will tell us something important about what we believe to be true about God Himself.

We can propose all kinds of answers to this question limited only by our imagination.  It happens all the time when something about life or about God confuses us.  We love answers and explanations.  The common belief of our day is that, given enough time and resource, we can figure out anything, reverse-engineer everything, and someday some up with all the answers to all the questions.  We just need more time.

This perspective does offer hope, but it is a futile hope.  Granted, the investigation into the wonders of the world is a great and divinely encouraged discipline.  Believing that such investigations will bring meaning and satisfaction to life is a fool’s errand.

While God’s created order IS designed to help us understand there IS a Creator, it doesn’t always mean we will understand His purposes.  Our human nature desires to know (hence, the ease with which Adam and Eve fell into temptation).  We are purposely created to be curious.  We struggle, however, with being content with our limitations on what we can know, especially of the things in the realm of meaning, purpose, and value.

Given this vacuum, we tend to fall back on simplistic, cliché-like explanations for life.  We assume the joys are life are blessings of God (they are!) because we are living righteously (oops, not so fast).  Conversely, we may believe that the struggles of life are a punishment from God because we have made poor choices (they aren’t - for those who are reconciled to God, all our sin issues were dealt with on the cross).  We may also resort to harmful christian-ese like, “All things work together for good,” or “God works in mysterious ways.”  While these are snippets of truth, they are actually more confusing and frustrating because they lack the larger context of life, God, and the nature of His created order.

It is silly for me to assume that my many hours of watching “Finding Nemo” would lend me insight to the dynamics of life under the sea.  It is also naive to assume that we can explain the ways of God.  Granted, there are times when we do see how life’s issues are resolved and we do find satisfaction.  But Solomon also instructed us to consider that the mysteries in life may not have any other satisfactory explanation than to remind us of our dependence on God (Eccl. 3:10-14).

Why has God put beautiful fish at the bottom of the sea?  In part, to help us learn that while God is knowable (hence, we can see His handiwork in creation and know His nature through the Scriptures), He is not always understandable.  This truth can bring us great comfort . . . if we embrace our dependence on Him.  Knowable, not understandable.  

Sometimes, the honest answer is, "I don't know why.  Only God does.  I can only trust."  It is a hard answer, sometimes feeling empty and unsatisfactory . . . at least for now.  But it is a good answer.

God alone is God.  There is no other.