Seeing God

I’ve spent the better part of my life trying to find God. And I guess I have, to a certain extent, because I’ve decided to be a Christian. But my search for God didn’t end with that decision made over eight years ago now. If anything, that’s when it really began. God seems to be really hard to find, it turns out. Oh sure, I get glimpses here and there, some farther apart than others. That’s all, but it’s also enough. It’s all I really need, those glimpses.

I forget that a lot, though. If I had my way, following God would be easier. There are probably a lot of people who feel that way. There are many ways that people, including me, try to make God more approachable, more real, as if he needs our approval to even exist, or at least have any significance in our lives.

We look up. We sing songs and write books and spend money to open our “spiritual” eyes. I’m not even sure what spiritual eyes are, I guess they’re located in or around our hearts, which is actually really weird. People from some other religions would say there’s only one spiritual eye, and it’s right smack dab in the middle of your forehead, or in the palm of your hand. I think both of those are way cooler than having eyes in our hearts, but that’s neither here nor there. Mystics and prophets and dreamers have been seeing God this way since pretty much forever, and it kind of works for me too, at least better than most things. But it doesn’t work way more often than it does, and I’m left wandering in the wilderness, a nomad seeking the next life-giving oasis.

Sometimes, we look outside. I mean, if God created everything in the natural world, then he must be out among his creation, right? And he definitely is. The most famous king of Israel was so convinced of this that he wrote a song that says so. Since then, a lot of other people who really love God have found him outside. People like St. Francis and Annie Dillard, just to name a couple and look smarter than I really am. There’s no denying the simple power of being alone outside, away from civilization. Sometimes God does speak through the breeze rustling leaves, and it’s worthwhile to listen for him there.

It’s very tempting for a lot of people, especially me, to look for God in words. We want to find him in books, in letters, even in the rules we’re supposed to follow. God gave us words, but it seems to me that he is in no way bound by words. Words point to God, but we have to be careful not to trap him in words. That’s hard, I think. All we really have to help us understand God at all are words, and so it’s very easy for me to make those words that really help me “see” God into, well, the final word.

The thing is, I think God actually has given us the best possible way to see him, and we usually end up ignoring this, because frankly, it’s everywhere. It’s people. Stinky, messed-up, broken-down, mean, loving, beautiful people are the best self-portrait God has for us. That doesn’t mean we can’t look up, or look outside, or even look in words. It just means that if we focus on any of those things without looking around at the people who surround us, then we’re getting part of the picture at best.

And I know how people can be. We’re constantly hurting each other and letting each other down. I honestly don’t know why that is. As a Christian, I have some ideas about why people suck so much, but more importantly, I believe that all people are capable of astonishing goodness, and worthy of unhesitant love and acceptance. I believe this because God was a human person once.