Seeing God

“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6 NKJV).

Sometimes people say they will not believe in God because they cannot believe in something they cannot see. What if they could see Him? What would happen? Job saw him and hated himself. He realized God’s majesty and might, and even though he’d protested his innocence of any specific sin, compared to God he could only abhor his own shortcomings — and repent.

Isaiah had a similar response. He was in the temple and saw, through the eyes of faith, a vision of the invisible God. He said, “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

When the Old Testament patriarch Jacob saw the Lord and even wrestled with Him, he was given a limp and forever changed. The parents of Sampson saw the Lord and thought they would surely die. While that did not happen, from then on He directed their lives.

Seeing God is not for the faint-hearted. In fact, Matthew 5:8 says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” God presents Himself, through the eyes of faith, only to those whose hearts are clean before Him, the pure-hearted.

In church we sing a chorus that has the line, “I want to see You . . .” and while the words do not say it, I am thinking how I long “to see You in answered prayer, see You at work in the lives of my family, see You changing people.”

I sat down this morning with that on my mind. Change my family, give those who don’t know You a heart for You. Let me see You at work in this world. But, I must consider what I am asking. If I want to see God, I can also expect the light of His holiness to expose me, unravel me, change me, make demands of me. Am I really willing for that kind of vision? I hope so.

Lord, whatever it takes, I want to see You.