Seeing.

SCRIPTURE:  “I have not spoken in secret, In a corner of a land of darkness; I did not say to the descendants of Jacob, ‘Seek Me in vain [with no benefit for yourselves].’ I, the Lord, speak righteousness [the truth—trustworthy, a straightforward correlation between deeds and words], Declaring things that are upright. Isaiah 45:19 AMP

THOUGHT: One of my daughters, when very small – maybe four or five, said to me out of the blue one day, “Mom, I just can’t see God, he’s too darn clear!” Aside from the fact that she likely shouldn’t have known the word “darn,” her observation made me both laugh and cry, and has stuck with me over the years.

God is clear, invisible in so many ways, and yet he also makes himself clear to us in a variety of other ways. As he says through Isaiah, I’m not trying to make myself hard to find or play some kind of hide and seek to frustrate you! (Or as The Message puts it, “I don’t just talk to myself or mumble under my breath. I never told Jacob, ‘Seek me in emptiness, in dark nothingness.’ I am God. I work out in the open, saying what’s right, setting things right.”)

I pray that someday she, and others who struggle with faith, will fully see through his invisible qualities to his obvious qualities.

In Romans 1, Paul writes “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” In other words, we can see God through this great big beautiful world he has made, including the intricacies of the human body and mind and the incredible variety of plant and animal life.

We also have all the stories of the Old and New Testament that begin to help us “know” God; understand his character; see his justice and his mercy on display to others just like us.

Finally, in the life of Jesus we get to see God most plainly. As Jesus himself said, “If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him (Jn. 14:7).” The writer of Hebrews says, “The Son is … the exact representation of his being (Heb. 1:3).”

We can see if we are only willing to trust.

PRAYER: Oh God, help us see you ever more clearly in what you have made, in the stories of our lives and the stories of others, and by trusting that Jesus knew what he was talking about when he said, “If you really know me, you will know my Father as well.”