I, like so many people, love a good mystery. I’ve read all the Sherlock Holmes stories, the Father Brown stories, and other good mysteries. I like trying to solve a good mystery.

A good mystery doesn’t reveal the mystery until the end. Throughout the story, the evidence of importance points to that person and the other person, and so on. However, you must read the end of the story to discover the answer to the mystery.

Mysteries don’t just exist in story novels. In my case, the mysteries are throughout my life. I can’t go a day without some kind of mystery.

It’s not because I’m getting older either. As I remember my younger days, it was also full of mysteries.

I remember that Christmas Eve when I was going to solve the mystery of Santa Claus. I heard about this mysterious person, but I had never seen him and this Christmas, I promised myself, I am going to see who this Santa Claus really is.

That night, my parents sent me, my brother, and my sister to bed early because it was Christmas Eve. We had our little party around the Christmas tree and admired where all the Christmas presents should be in the morning.

Then, when it was 10 o’clock, we were sent to our rooms to await the arrival of Santa Claus and the Christmas presents. I decided to stay up and see how Mr. Santa Claus did the mystery on him on Christmas Eve.

Hiding in the shadows, I could see my mother and father around the Christmas tree drinking Christmas punch, talking and laughing. They seemed to be having a good time. I was a little irritated that they were having a good time at my expense.

Then I heard my mother say, “Don’t you think it’s about time?”

My mom and dad looked at each other and gave one of those hilarious giggles. My father said, “Sure it is. Let’s go find them.”

At that time, I really didn’t understand what he was talking about. What were they supposed to go looking for? Why don’t they get out of the way so Santa Claus can come and do his “thing” for him?

They soon disappeared and I got excited because I thought the next person to walk into the room would be Santa Claus himself.

Faintly I heard from the hallway, “Shhhhhh, we don’t want to wake the kids up.”

Then I saw something that I never anticipated in my entire life. My mother and father entered the living room with Christmas presents and carefully placed them under the Christmas tree. They made several trips and it wasn’t long before the Christmas tree was loaded with all kinds of Christmas gifts.

He just couldn’t believe his eyes. For years, my parents told us the story of Santa Claus along with Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. They told it in such a way that I believed every word. Now, before me was the evidence that what they had been telling me all these years, presented as a mystery, was not a mystery at all.

I just solved the biggest mystery of my life so far. My parents were Santa Claus. It was hard for me to swallow that information. It wasn’t the mystery he wanted to solve.

Now I had another mystery on my hands. Do I tell my brother and sister that I had solved the biggest mystery we had in our house?

Revealing the mystery to them would give me great satisfaction.

On the other hand, revealing the mystery to them would greatly disappoint them.

Now that I’ve solved that mystery, what do I do? Do I seek my satisfaction or protect my brothers from disappointment?

It was then that I solved the greatest mystery of life. That being the case, every mystery you solve presents a bigger mystery that you can’t solve. That seems to be the way of life.

I’m glad I learned it when I was young because it has been beneficial to me over the years. I have learned to live with mysteries without any desire to discover those mysteries.

When I say, “desireless,” I don’t mean it literally. Yes, there have been many mysteries that I have wanted to solve. But my biggest discipline is to let a mystery be a mystery.

This is very useful for me, especially since I became a husband.

Every husband knows that his wife, as wonderful as she is, is a basket full of mysteries.

When I first got married, I thought it was my job to solve each one of those mysteries. I learned very quickly that solving a marital mystery, particularly on the female side, is a pretty dangerous undertaking without good grades behind it.

Some things are better left in the mystery basket of life.

Paul understood this when he wrote, “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on by the world, received up into glory.” (1 Timothy 3:16).

Some mysteries are too sacred to try to solve, rather we should rejoice in the mysteries associated with our Father in heaven.