Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 97:2

Clouds and darkness are round about him. God doth govern the world mysteriously. As there are mysteries in the word, so in the works of God; dusnohta, "things hard to be understood", (2Pe 3:16), many riddles which nonplus and puzzle men of the largest and most piercing intellectuals: "Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: on the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him: but he knoweth the way that I take." Job 23:8-10. God knoweth our ways, and counteth our steps; but the wisest of men do not know all God's ways. His way is frequently in the sea, and his chariots in the clouds; so that he is invisible, not only in his essence, but also in the design and tendence of his operations. Those that behold him with an eye of faith, do not yet see him with an eye of understanding, so as to discern his way, and whither he is going. Paul assures us, "His judgments are unsearchable, and his ways past finding out." Ro 11:33. Some of them, indeed, are obvious, plain, and easy; we may upon the first view give a satisfactory account of them; we may read righteousness, equity, mercy, goodness, love, in them, because written in capital letters, and with such beams of light as he that runs may read them. But others of God's ways are dark and obscure, so that they are out of our reach and above our sight. He that goes about in them to trace God, may quickly lose himself. They are like that hand writing upon the wall, which none of Belshazzar's wise men could read or give the interpretation of (Da 5:8). There are arcana imperii, "secrets of state and government", which are not fit to be made common. But this may be our comfort: —though God doth not now give any account of his matters, nor is he obliged thereunto, yet he can give a very good and satisfactory account; and one day his people shall be led into the mystery; and, though many things which God doeth they know not now, yet they shall know them afterward; and when they know, they shall approve and admire both the things, and the reason, and the end. They shall then be perfectly reconciled to all providence, and see that all were worthy of God, and that in all he acted yeoprepwv, "as did highly become himself." —Samuel Slater (1704) in "The Morning Exercises."