But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things. . . . John 14: 26a

Seeing

During half-time of the high school football game, my daughter-in-law, Rachel (who took the lovely photo above at another event) brought four-year-old Serenity over to me in the stands for a visit. It was a perfect fall evening. The skies were clear and the temperatures in the sixties.  While we were chatting about what she'd learned in pre-school that week, she pointed and asked, "Is that a star?" Just above the southwest treeline outside the stadium, in a deep blue sky shone the evening star.

            "Yup, sure is!"

            "Where are the others?" she asked.

            I explained that they were there, but she just couldn't see them because it was still too light and the stadium lights were too bright. Not understanding, she asked again.  I explained again, but apparently not well enough.  She continued to look puzzled, unconvinced, which isn't really all that surprising. Many of us have trouble believing in things we can't see.

            In 1996 scientists, for the first time, pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at a miniscule, completely black patch of sky near the Big Dipper. This was risky because Hubble time comes at a high premium.  Why waste precious time and money on pointing this high-tech instrument at nothing?  But what they discovered astonished them.  In that "blank" patch of sky were more than 3,000 galaxies!  The experiment was repeated in 2004 with another seemingly empty patch of sky near Orion, and that time more than 10,000 galaxies were seen in what is now known as the ultra-deep field.  Astounding!

            In regard to God and His kingdom, we either are or have been at one time, just as uncertain, just as only-seeing-is-believing as my granddaughter and those scientists.  "Prove it!" we say or have said, skeptics with our crossed arms and set jaws.  But just like those stars and galaxies, just because we can't see God or the fullness of His plans, it doesn't mean He isn't there, or that they don't exist. 

"My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the Lord.  "And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.  For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts."

                                                Isaiah 55: 8- 9 NLT

            When the Creator of billions of galaxies, the majority of which scientists will probably never be able to see from Earth says, "just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts," that's really saying something!

            Years ago my children learned a song in VBS, "My God is so BIG, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do!"  

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.              Ephesians 3:20 NLT

            So spend some time staring into that space you've believed to be empty. You never know what might be revealed. . . . Believing is seeing.

Daye Phillippo

October 2013