Believing in the Invisible God
February 25, 2010

I remember as a kid asking God to show himself to me. Or, to speak to me. The request didn't seem like too much to ask. After all, I just wanted some tangible proof that God actually exists and that he cares about me. I wanted to know that God was not just up there somewhere, but beside me. Yet, he never showed himself -- no big surprise there. And he never spoke to me -- again, no big surprise. Nevertheless, as I slept under the stars in eastern New Mexico I knew someone had created the lights over-head.

When I came to Christ as a freshman in college I hoped that maybe, just maybe, God would finally talk to me as he had with Adam and Moses and Elijah and other men in the Bible. But God remained silent and invisible. Oh, I've gotten strong impressions in which I felt God was nudging or directing me. I've felt his comfort during times of suffering and loss. I've even had vivid dreams in which I thought maybe God was trying to tell me something. But he's never called me on the phone, knocked on my front door, or suddenly appeared in my presence.

The challenge we all face is believing in the presence of a God we can't see or touch. Jesus understood the difficulty of such faith. After the resurrection he told Thomas, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29).

Did you catch that last phrase? God's blessing is ours if we'll choose to believe in the one we can't see.

Astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross suggests we imagine that the two-dimensional image on a television screen actually consists of a living two-dimensional world. If you placed your fingertip on the screen, what would the people in the two-dimensional world see? Your fingertip would be a flat, round, two-dimensional image that would look like a dot. No one in that world would be able to see or comprehend depth any more than a blind person could comprehend color.

If you entered that two-dimensional world and told the people about the three-dimensional world outside of their own, some would believe. But nobody would possess depth perception. They would have to take the existence of such a world by faith. Similarly, God doesn't exist just on the other side of the galaxy. He is with us. On occasions he has made himself known through the appearance of angels, a message to the prophets, or, in the case of Moses, a burning bush. His greatest manifestation occurred when he actually became a man, Jesus Christ. John said he and others saw Jesus with their eyes and touched him with their hands (1 John 1:3).

So how do we go about believing in a God we can't see with our eyes or hear with our ears ... a God who is both invisible and with us? I'd suggest that you take a moment and reflect on the fact that God is in you and with you. Thank him for his presence. Ask him for the grace you need to continue to trust in him even when you don't sense his presence. But take another step ... determine to live each moment with a conscious awareness of God's presence. That, my friend, will change the way you think, act, and speak.