It started back in December of 2005. I was on the heels of a summer that had rocked my world. It was a season of life when I had spent my days making demands of God, begging him to show up in real, tangible ways, ways in my mind that would prove that He was who he said He was. Pages and pages of my journal were filled with frantic scribblings, sometimes in all caps, things like "WHERE ARE YOU, GOD?" My faith depended on what I could see. I was in pursuit of physical evidences of God, proof that he was real and present in my life. I was looking for the mountain top, the bolt of lightning, the writing on the wall, the pillar of fire. I wanted something I could touch and see and feel.
I rounded out that summer coming to the conclusion that if my faith was based on what God did, then it wasn't much faith, because it was going to be contingent on what I could see before me. But if it was based on who He was? That was a different story.
For Christmas that year, my mentor, Debbie, a very dear woman who pointed me to Jesus time and time again throughout my early and mid-twenties, gave me a photograph of a sunset, with a note on the back, quoting Matthew 16:
The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven. He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.I've since added to my collection of sunset photographs, various ones hanging around my apartment. I have one of a sunset over the Masai Mara in Kenya. Another one of a sunset over the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. One of a sunset over a cornfield by my parents' house. A sunset over the Pacific Ocean in San Diego. Daily reminders that I had been looking for a God I could see. I was looking to the skies to see when he was going to show up and behave like I thought he should. The Pharisees and Sadducees were no different, searching equally so for a God they could see. They had the very God made flesh standing before them, a man named Jesus Christ, and yet they still demanded a sign.
What foolish, foolish people we are.
I've been reminded of this lesson afresh here lately. The Holy Spirit and I have been hammering away on Exodus 32 as of late, the story of the Israelites and the golden calf. God had brought the people out of Egypt, he had sent the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night to lead them. He had given them Moses, the man who would lead them through the desert, the man who would speak to God as if they were friends. God had loosed the chains of slavery, and set their feet upon a path to freedom. He had parted the waters and drowned the Egyptian army. God had made himself known to them time and time again.
And then Moses ascends Mount Sinai to meet with God. The Bible says that the mountaintop was covered with fire, evidence of God's presence. Forty days Moses is up there. The people get a little impatient in the waiting, wondering where the heck this Moses guy is. (Don't we do the same when we are waiting on God? "Where the heck did God go? And why isn't he doing what I think he should be doing?")
When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”Come, makes us gods who will go before us.
Come, make us a god we can see.
We're standing in the shadow of the Almighty, but we're not really convinced he is who he says he is, and we're not convinced he can do what he says he can do. So, we're going to march ourselves over here and craft a god we can see, one who is right before our very eyes.
We spend our days searching for a God we can see, a God we can touch and feel, a God where we can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he exists.
But here's what I am learning:
You and I don't need a God we can see.
Because we have a God who sees us.
Hagar, the mistress of Abraham, said in Genesis 16:13, after she had fled Abraham's wife, Sarai, and an angel comes to minister to her, "You are the God who sees me."
Beer Lahai Roi.
Well of the Living Ones Who Sees Me.
It's what she named the place where the angel came to visit her.
You are the God who sees me.
We have a God who sees us. Why, oh why, do we spend our days hell-bent on fabricating a God we can see, when we get the God of the universe who has proclaimed over and over and over and over again, "I see you"?
You and I do not need a God we can see. If our faith is dependent on a God that has to manifest himself in tangible ways before we believe, then we've got the wrong God on our hands. All we've done is make an idol in his place. And the horrible news about idols and false gods? They can't see you. The Israelites could worship that golden calf all they wanted. They could dance around it and offer it sacrifices and bring their burnt offerings for generations to come. They could sing their praises to it, pat it on its head, and build their altars around it.
But that golden calf was never going to develop eyes and see them. That golden calf was never going to be able to respond to them, speak to them, feed them, save them, sanctify them. Never. And neither will the false idols we create.
After Jesus hung on the cross, was buried in the tomb, and was resurrected, he appeared to his disciples. The disciples proclaimed, "We have seen the Lord!" But good ol' Thomas, he wasn't going to believe the others until the saw the nail-scarred hands. So, Jesus came to him, invited him to put his hands on Jesus' nail-scarred hands. And then Thomas saw and believed.
And then Jesus said this, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Thomas, Thomas, Thomas. You want a God you can see and touch and feel.
But I am the God who sees you.
I see all your doubts, all your fears, all your wanderings, all your moments spent wondering if I'm really who I say I am.
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
I am the God who sees you.
You and I? We don't need a God we can see. The world has enough of those and every single one of them is bogus and every single one of them has eyes that are tightly closed, unable to see or respond to those who worship them.
Don't go searching for a God you can see.
You have a God who sees you.
