Enigma

In a 1939 radio broadcast, Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, declared the following about Russia:   “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”  Whenever I hear or see the word “enigma,” I think of this quotation because it’s so descriptive, not just of Russia but of many other situations as well.  The visual image this description brings to my mind is of Russian nesting dolls, the matryoshka.  Wikipedia describes them as follows:  “A set of matryoshkas consists of a wooden figure which separates, top from bottom, to reveal a small figure of the same sort inside, which has, in turn, another figure inside of it, and so on.”

While Churchill pondered the weighty issues of the Cold War and how to understand the machinations and decisions of another global power, I consider far more mundane matters.  There are just so many issues, decisions, and matters I don’t understand—so many things that are enigmas to me.  Here are a few:

• Why do car manufacturers build cars with turn signals when drivers so seldom use them?
• Where did dragon fruit get its name?  Are there dragons who eat it?  Are there dragons, and everyone has been withholding that information from me?!?  Does anyone buy and/or eat dragon fruit?  What happens to the dragon fruit that doesn’t get bought?
• Why do my neighbors go out to check their mailbox numerous times every day, even when there’s no mail delivery?  I’m fascinated by this behavior but have no clue about the reason for it.  Our neighborhood’s mail delivery comes late in the afternoon, but morning, noon, and night the neighbors walk from their house to the mailbox and back again, often obviously disappointed by the lack of mail.  I’m mystified.

I don’t expect you to answer any of these questions.  They are just the kinds of little everyday mysteries that plague me in the odd minutes of the day.  My mind could be far better employed—obviously.  What if I were to consider this enigma posed by the Apostle Paul in Romans 7:21-25?

“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.  What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?  Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.”

This mind-bending thought indeed presents an enigma.  Why do we behave in ways that are contrary to the ways we want to behave?  Clearly, however, I can rejoice along with Paul and thank God that Jesus Christ has delivered me from the effects  of this enigma!

Questions for you:  What enigmas occupy you in the odd moments of the day?  When you read Roman 7:21-25, what do you think or feel?