Maximize Moments

God is Visible

Since 2009 started, a part of my heart has been wresting with the question of “How can one sustain a relationship with someone you do not see? And in this case, that someone is God.
Supposedly, our relationship with God is a faith journey. I don’t know about you, some times faith to me is almost synonymous with foolishness, and at times a constant clash between head and heart.

This morning, I woke up and started reading my bible with foggy eyes, jammed mind and a half-paralyzed body. By the way, I am currently reading from Matthew. When I got to verse 25:31-46 (an analogy we know so well)….goats and sheep and all that…where he separates the sheep from the goat, and thanked the sheep for giving him food, clothes, hospitality etc.
It suddenly hit me that God is Love and Love is God. Every experience of love is an experience of God!!! (Whether one is the giver or receiver). But we have heard many times that we cannot see God, true! but there is another side to God, He daily reveals himself in human form! …through the eyes of the homeless, kid, through the wrinkled face of the dying HIV positive woman, through the eyes of an abandoned baby, through the eyes of the stranger seeking direction to the train station. Not to say he is found only in places of need, even in the eyes of the rapist, the dictator, the drunkard. God is in every human being!!! It is logical to reach out to needy people, How about the prison part of the story?

Can I look beyond the prison/bondage of people and see God waiting to be discovered in them?
The irony of the story is that in most cases, I don’t see God in the “man on the street”. I see a labeled person, and perhaps the problem, ignoring the image of God in them. I get so preoccupied with trying to get through my day and I sometimes just don’t see people (I mean God). How can I say I love God when I don’t love the people that I see?
1 John 4:8 says it best “whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love…”

It sounds so idyllic, until fear comes into the equation. It changes the whole dynamic. The world is full of evil people, with rebellion and brokenness everywhere… Do I have a legitimate reason to shut off from seeing God in people because of their messed up choices, lives, behaviours and addictions? Do people need to deserve or qualify for love before I love them? I don’t believe that when Jesus said “whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me” included a “qualifying clause” for love. I think that’s where my struggle lies.