In Albert Einstein’s early days physicists had scratched their heads for some 50 years over the unexplainable orbit of the planet Mercury. Newton’s theories of gravity had served well for centuries to understand the orbits of all the other planets, but in Mercury’s elliptical orbit, the point nearest the sun drifted by a very small amount….
Astronomers conjectured that another small hidden planet, which they named Vulcan, might orbit near the sun and exert gravitational force on Mercury. But Vulcan was never discovered….
But then Einstein formulated his general theory of relativity. When he applied this gravitational formula to the eccentric orbit of Mercury, he had one of the breathtaking moments of his scientific life: the numbers fit. Mercury was a mystery no more.
My life will on occasion have an orbit like Mercury, which for a time simply defies my best efforts to explain it. Nonetheless as surely as there is order in the universe, there is a heavenly reason for my circumstances utterly consistent with God’s Word and character. I just cannot understand it yet.