Evidence

One unique truth and reality about God is that He is simultaneously everywhere, and yet also invisible.  God’s “everywhere-ness” is often referred to as His omnipresence, meaning that He can be everywhere at the same time.  He isn’t bound by location like you and I are. And yet, His divine omnipresence remains invisible to us. 

 

If I am honest, there are times that I wish I was walking “with” Jesus like the early disciples were.  I want to see him with my own eyes!  I think, “wouldn’t it be great to sit across from Jesus, share a meal with him, and ask him all of my questions.” And yet, to my surprise, Jesus himself said that it was better for him to go and be with the Father than it was for him to remain with us (John 16:6-8).  He qualified his reasoning for saying this in his very next statement, “for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you.”  Jesus knew it better for the Holy Spirit, the Helper, to live inside each of us.  But that meant that he would have to leave. And his ascension meant that now we live at a point in the history of God’s people where God’s kingdom and His work is all around us, but it’s hard to see at times.  

 

This is why we, followers of Jesus, must develop a new way of seeing.  We must learn to see with “spiritual eyes”, discerning the evidence of God’s work all around us.  For we know that God is indeed good, and that He is always working in our lives and in the world, even when we struggle to perceive it. 

 

The good news is that once we learn to see God’s hand at work, we begin to recognize it everywhere.  We can look back on our entire life’s story and recognize how He was graciously working even all along the way.  In the present moment, oftentimes despite difficult circumstances and struggle, we can learn to see the evidence of his goodness towards us.  And ultimately, we you and I can find great hope and assurance knowing that at the end of our lives on earth, we will be able to say that God has never left us and never forsaken us. We will be able to see the evidence of God’s goodness scattered across the landscape of our lives.  The evidence has been there all along, waiting for us to discover how intricately He has been caring for us all long the way. 

 

Our job in this moment is to learn to see it. To be present and attentive to what God is doing.  This happens through prayer, the kind of prayer that is continual and unceasing as Paul wrote about in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18.  We participate in this kind of prayer by walking with the Holy Spirit each day, listening to his still small voice as He helps us and empowers us to see with spiritual eyes.   Recognizing the evidence of God’s goodness around us is less about striving to do it better and more about receiving eyes to perceive the greater reality.  So let us now, pause and ask God to give us eyes to see the evidence of His goodness that is all over our lives.  And let’s respond accordingly, with thanksgiving and worship to Jesus, for it is by his great sacrifice that we are offered the chance to know just how good God really is.