Like a Thief in the Night

       If you want a quick victory, catch your opponent completely off guard. The element of surprise is a very useful strategy and can be decisive if used correctly.  If you achieve complete surprise, hit hard and hit quickly, and overwhelm your enemy, it can be exceedingly difficult for a surprised enemy to defend against it. 

     

       Unpredictability and strategic complexity are effective tactics in any war, spiritual, physical, or otherwise. The more complex the strategy, the more unpredictable it is. The more unpredictable it is, the less an enemy can anticipate the moves, increasing the probability of success of the strategy in the conflict. 

     The level of complexity involved in a strategy is directly related to the level of complexity of the planner.  So too, is the level of unpredictability. Having an inability to be anticipated or predicted greatly increases the probability of success for the operation you are undertaking and the fruition of your goal. 

            In terms of that "big picture" God vs. His enemies, good vs. evil conflict that is probably eternal, God's advantage, aside from is indestructability, is also his mental complexity. He has an infinite mind. An infinite mind can develop strategies extremely more complex than his enemies can. His enemies are finite, with finite minds and plans and schemes of limited complexity. They are far simpler, and far more predictable. 

       God, like the master gameplayer He is, has total mastery of every battlefield and every theater of that war, and to his enemies his plans seem chaotic, inconsistent, or even non-existent, but an infinite mind can process, analyze, and comprehend every possible progression of the war, and every possible variable, and every possible outcome that could happen.  He knows exactly what He is doing. 

     His enemies don't have this level of sophistication. The devil doesn't. His angels don't. God's complexity and unpredictability give Him a distinct and clear advantage in His conflicts, far more so than I think humans can understand. 

     The question I get often with this philosophy is "why would God engage in this like he does?" 

 My answer is pretty simple.

Glory. The maximization of glory, eternal, temporary, or any other form of glory.

    I also know that glory doesn't come easy. There has to be a challenge. There has to be difficulty. WIthout difficulty, the glory of overcoming an enemy or obstacle doesn't have the same value or the same quality. 

      In the battle between an infinite mind and finite ones, the infinite always wins. 

     In terms of complexity and unpredictability, an infinitely complex mind always has the advantage in any strategy, and always wins in the end, even in the appearance of loss or disadvantage. Like snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, the maximization of glory comes from surprise and unexpected variables in what seemed like a lost situation. 

  There are few things more glorious in war and games than coming back from a seemingly defeated state. Just look at how Jesus rose from the dead. 

        Because unpredictability, surprise, and complexity have such a potent and useful strategic value, it's no surprise (irony intended) that Jesus describes His return and the day of the Lord as "coming like a thief in the night."  When this event happens, it won't just take God's enemies off guard. It will take EVERYONE off guard. 

      Whenever someone claims to know the date of Christ's return or the date of Judgement day, you know they are wrong and you know it is not that day. God's not going to return on the whim and clamoring of an arrogant wannabe prophet just to have that prophet say to people "I told you so" for his glory.   

      He is going to come back with complete and total element of surprise in tact. Everyone is going to be surprised, and there will be no mistaking the event for what it is as it progresses.  An infinitely complex Creator mind has a method of planning that is completely unanticipatable by His enemies.  Complexity looks like chaos to the simple minded, but to a complex architect, that complexity is a mastered and harnessed art.