Can you see what is not seen?

We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2^nd Corinthians 4:18)

How can we see what is unseen? This is actually accomplished in many ways. People once thought that grains of sand were the smallest thing there was, until optical microscopes enabled us to see smaller objects, like cells. Today, electron microscopes let us discover things that are 100 million times smaller, like bacteria, viruses, molecules and atoms. We once thought that atoms were indivisible, until we split them – revealing protons, neutrons and electrons inside. Then we found even smaller things inside them! But what about things that are further away than we can see? Astronomers have found more than 500 solar systems in our Milky Way Galaxy in addition to our own and they’re discovering new ones every year. The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the universe, but the James Web Telescope due to launch in a few years will be 100X stronger than the Hubble. Who knows what that will pick up? What really blows my mind is how fast the Milky Way is hurtling through space – 1.3 million miles per hour! It doesn’t just hang there in space, as the pictures show. The fact that it hasn’t yet collided into another galaxy is a testament to how huge the universe is.

Do you see a pattern here? The closer we look, the more intricate and complex our world and universe appears, which points to an intelligent Designer, who is more intricate and complex than we will ever comprehend. Just like the universe he fashioned, there is no limit to what our Creator can do, so why should our perception of him be limited only to what we can observe with our puny senses?

Some of us are like Doubting Thomas; we won’t believe in something if we can’t see it. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. We can’t see the wind. We can’t see sound waves, which are used by sonar to locate things under water that we can’t otherwise see. We can’t see radio waves, either, but they are used by radar to track things in the sky and in the ground. We can’t see radiation or magnetic fields, but x-rays and MRIs can see inside our bodies. This should help us to believe that there are other things we can’t see either, like spiritual entities.

Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12)

The phrase, “What you don’t know can’t hurt you” is ludicrous. Just ask people who found they had a disease too late to treat. The same thing applies to what you can’t see, like natural gas and carbon monoxide and life after death. How can we train our senses to become aware of the spiritual dimension, not only of evil forces but also to recognize the movement of God and experience his presence? The first step is to have the barrier of sin removed that separates us from his holiness, by accepting and trusting his son, Jesus, who gave himself for us on the cross. Then, seek him with all your heart and cultivate a relationship with him by reading the Bible, praying often and following him. There’s more to it, of course, which we’ll explore in future posts. But I will mention one more thing now that we need to do – relax!

 

“Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

Look at the stereogram image below. At first, it looks like a jumbled up mess. But if you quit trying to focus on it and relax your eyes, you will see some fish appear. You may need to put your nose up to it, let it go out of focus and slowly pull it away from you. The first time I looked at this, I saw three fish. Then, when I tried pulling it away from my nose I saw three more fish in a different layer of 3D!

“I was blind, but now I see!”

With some practice, we can train our spiritual eyes and ears to see and hear from the Lord. We just need to sit still long enough to listen to him, then keep in touch with him with ongoing conversational prayer throughout the day. He wants us to know him:

This is what the Lord says, “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let him who boasts boast about this; that they have the understanding to know me.” (Jeremiah 9:23-24)

It is so sad to think that many people never learn to connect with God. They go through their lives wondering how they got here but never take the leap of faith required to look beyond the obvious and peer into the realm of the unseen, where love, joy and peace abound, even amidst the struggles and hardships of the seen world. It’s not easy to see past the natural and into the supernatural, but,

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
I will be found by you,” declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 29: 13, 14)