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Trying to Look through God’s Eyes

For decades I have prayed that I could get glimpses of seeing the world through God’s eyes. I try to imagine what it is like to know every thought everyone is having at any given moment. I believe that must be both humorous and sometimes heartbreaking for God. I am in awe at the many things God can hold in His mind at the same time.

From time to time I get to look at the world from a vantage point that stirs up my curiosity anew, as a passenger in a small airplane. I am overwhelmed, not only by all the buttons and dials, but by the time of worship that ensues.

Recently I asked the pilot if he believed in God and he said yes. I asked if he felt closer to God when he flew and he said yes. He said he felt closer to God and that he might be sharing in one of the many ways God sees the world.

As I look down onto homes, forests and buildings, my challenges shrink as I imagine God knowing every detail of every heart in every place that is thousands of feet below. God know every joy, every fear, every heartbreak. God feels each feeling along with each person, as well as His own feelings about our feelings. The amazing capacity of God is so vast it hurts my brain to think about this.

One of the many values of these thoughts is that our thoughts are not the most important things happening in the universe but part of a greater pattern of all our lives together that are part of God’s constant attention.

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Holy Ground

God said, “Do not come any closer. Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing is holy ground.” Exodus 3:5. NIV

In the never ending parade of thoughts that present themselves to us, themes reappear. A lifelong theme for me has been the idea of holy ground. My first encounter with this was as a small child when encountering an illustration of Moses and the burning bush.

As a pre-literate, pre-focused pre-schooler, church services were a challenge. After my under pew examination, noting the temperature of the floor with my cheek, drawing the monsters I saw in my closet the previous night and examining my dad’s fingernails, I would look through the pictures in my mom’s Bible.

The picture that captivated me (the way I saw it was probably nothing like the actual picture) was Moses with a curly mane of black and gray hair and a scruffy beard. He looked both curious and scared, clutching his staff, standing with legs spread and braced for something big. The ground beneath him fascinated me more. It was the very top of the mountain, rough with a pink glow that looked like rose quartz with a roaring fire beneath. I imagined it both hot and cool at the same time. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was my first encounter with awe.

My childhood walks through a nearby woods consisted of scouting for burning bushes. I never found any but gradually I realized that all I had to do was visualize the picture and a sense of sacred awe flooded my mind. God was big and mysterious. Did God create holy ground in my soul?

As I sit with clients in my office, and a life changing insight emerges it feels like an epiphany–an appearance of God. The room feels like holy space. Human meets God.

All my life I have looked for spaces of God in high concentrations. As the men on the road to Emmaus declared, “Were not our hearts burning within us?”, my burning heart seems to be a Geiger Counter indicating holy ground, whether in the inner or the outer world.

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Shame Keeps us Hiding, God is Seeking

The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. Genesis 2:25 NIV

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Genesis 3:7 NIV

It all began in Eden. Out of a beautiful, perfect garden came shame, an affliction that pains every human that has ever existed. How do we know? For one thing, we wear clothing. And this happened after a major screw up, taking a serpent’s advice over God’s instruction. Shame is defined in the dictionary as “a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.” However, that definition suggests behaviors create shame. Bad behavior can definitely trigger guilt, then shame. But shame can also be a reflection of who we feel we are, not just what we do.

Shame is the feeling of being exposed, inadequate, wrong, not good enough, or tainted in some way. Shame is like an invisible cloud of dirt that follows us everywhere we go, and though it can’t be seen with our own eyes, we fear others see it and thus reject us.

When my children were younger than five, they found out that the first people who carried the Olympic torch were naked, so they would rip off their clothing and tear around the house yelling, “Olympic torch.” Somewhere along the way they stopped doing this. It coincided with their growth in the area of self-awareness and the recognition of imperfection, and thus shame. They no longer run around naked. In fact, now they are appalled at this amusing memory I have mentioned from time to time.

If we are unaware of our shame, we are unaware, as in unconscious. Things that can lead to unawareness of our own shame are abuse of drugs or alcohol. People can do things that might be labeled as “shameless” or “embarrassing” if one goes unconscious enough. Some people actually use substances to numb themselves from the unbearable feeling of shame, which is always worse if we have abuse or neglect in our history.

While we may not numb our pain of shame with drugs, we may numb our feelings in other ways. Our “fig leaves” may be fancy clothing, homes, education, social status, money, cars or other toys. We can dull our shame feelings with technology–computers, phones, television. We are spared feelings of shame because we are spared feelings of any kind.

When our eyes are opened and we are aware of our shame, it can either drive us to or away from God. God was still looking for Adam and Eve after He knew they screwed up. We hide from Him because we are afraid of being rejected by Him. But God is still looking for us.

When I was about ten years old I copied a verse from the Bible which said, “Thou O God, seest me” Genesis 16:13 KJV across from the toilet. (It replaced the page I tore out of Mad Magazine which had a mug staring straight at you and said, “Fonebone is watching you.”). My mom vetoed both and they disappeared. But my mom apparently had a conflict about discarding a Bible verse so it was across the toilet for a few weeks before it disappeared. During that time, I looked at this verse and pondered shame, hiding and where and when God looks for us. As a bathroom theologian, I decided there are many times when I wanted to hide from God, but God is here, across from the toilet, lovingly seeking me.

If we can wrap our understanding around God wanting our shameful unacceptable, gross selves, as He sees even those parts of ourselves as part of the precious package of who we are, cleaned up by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, then we can feel an awe and gratitude that a perfect God can love us in our messiness. If we don’t hide anything, but know we are laid bare, even to the naughtiest thought we have ever had, we can receive His grace in a way that is liberating and transforming.

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Abundant Life in God?

You fill me with joy in your presence. David, Psalm 16:11

To miss joy is to miss all. Robert Louis Stevenson, 1887

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Jesus, John 10:10

What is a life to the full, or an abundant life, as some Bible translations say? Is it an intellectual idea or a way of existing? Is it for believers now or only after this life? I have an idea it can be all of that. There is something innate that makes us long for abundant life in God, now and to come. We do not just want to know about God. We are wired to seek a relationship with God.

Humans are wired for relationship from birth. Babies come out ready to attach—longing to be enfolded in the love and warmth of a parent. We never lose that longing, first for our parents, then others, and ultimately God.

We long to lose ourselves in the divinity of another. Unfortunately, most of the time we project God’s divinity onto another, which can be euphoric for awhile and often ends in heartbreak. But if we can imagine the most extreme joy and attraction we have had for another human, then put that longing to God—that’s only the beginning.

Many of us cannot imagine a God that is amazing. We often see God as a distant, clueless, grumpy, shifty, disengaged, old man. When life is tough we can see God as out of touch, harsh and elusive.

What if we watch for God to show up in the not so traditional and expected ways? God could be in a burning bush as Moses experienced, or a still, small voice like Elijah heard. God could inhabit a sunset, a ladybug, a baby or an old man. How about God being in a thought, a feeling, or an idea? If we can see God in all things and through all things as Colossians 1:17 suggests, we can experience abundant life in God daily.

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Finding Facets of God

A facet is one detail of a many sided thing. In a diamond, the more facets, the more beautiful the stone.

I wonder how many of the facets of God I have seen. I wonder how many of the facets I have the capacity to see. Do different people touch different aspects of God? Have we as a group of believers from the beginning of human history until now only touched a few facets of this God we long to know? How can we increase our capacity to know more facets of God?

There is some evidence that blue is the most recent color that the human eye could see. Prior to that things that appear blue now were seen differently. Humans eyes have increased capacity to see colors so we can now see over a million different colors.

What if we can grow in our capacity to see more of God? Would a wider variety of experiences help us know different aspects of God? Have we even known the facets that are named in the Bible? Wonderful Counselor. Mighty to Save. A Still, Small Voice. I Am Who I Am (Everything I Am I Will Be to You). These are just a few of the facets of God saints in the Bible have experienced.

When we feel awe we can see the largeness and creativity of God. When we suffer it is possible to feel the nurturing comfort of God. When we are small or immature we experience God like a father or a mother. As we grow God may be more of a friend, adviser, or an invisible power in all things and through all things in addition to a parent.

So just like a diamond is more beautiful the more facets we see, the more sides of God we see the more we can know the beauty of God.

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Curiosity

The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want to wonder.

G.K. Chesterton

A lack of curiosity is a form of suffering. We are created in the image of God, with the personality traits God possesses. This means that humans, in our unwounded state, are naturally curious. We observe this in babies and small children. They begin by looking, then licking and exploring by mouth, and touching whatever is interesting. We can continue to do more mature forms of exploration all of our lives if curiosity is not disowned.

Curiosity connects us with God. But curiosity can go underground if we experience trauma. A person cannot stop and explore if something deadly is threatening. We can also disown our natural sense of wonder if we are shamed, scolded or devalued for being curious, especially if this happens early in life. We can quell our sense of wonder if we fear we will be rejected if we aren’t like others. We can choose to conform and be accepted or take a risk of rejection and find vistas of abundant life we didn’t know were possible.

If our natural state of wonder is not present in our relationship with God, it is impoverished and lacks many dimensions. Our prayer life is flat, and lacks the richness we can share with God if we bring our entire selves to Him. We miss out not only what we can bring to God, but also in what God has to show us and share with us in His perfect creativity. Most tragically, we have very limited awareness of God, since to really know God, we must seek Him, and curiosity drives the search.

As with most healing, we start by acknowledging the problem of a lack of imagination and ask God’s help in repairing our deadened curiosity. If we have trauma in our lives, getting therapy can help open the way for new and amazing ways of thinking, as well as healing the wounds that limit us and harm our growth.

If we need an example to remind us what curiosity looks like, study how a small child goes through the day. Everything from the roundness of a pea, to how a car lock works, to a dog is worthy of examination and delight. Even their approach to God is full of innocence, trust and curiosity.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” Luke 18:16,17 (NIV). Like a child, let us be curious about God and find the joy that children know.

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Mad at God

God is confusing and difficult to understand. Often we find ourselves very frustrated. How mad we get at God depends on what we expect of God. The more we expect the more angry we are when God doesn’t behave like we think God should act.

Underneath anger is usually hurt or fear. I hear people express anger at God several times a week in my professional work as a therapist but I have never yet heard someone say, “God hurt my feelings” or “I’m afraid of God and how God operates.” At least those are not the first sentiments expressed. The closest we come is to think God is sadistic or that there is no God at all since I don’t like the version of God that I think is operating the world.

God is, at the very least, confusing. It’s difficult to stay with the feeling of confusion. We tend to move into judgement then anger when things don’t make sense to us. But maybe staying for awhile with the confusion and frustration can lead us to deeper places within ourselves and even to a deeper spiritual life.

In GK Chesterton’s novel, The Man who was Thursday, which was published in 1908, the author beautifully depicts this struggle and the strong relationship that can unfold as a result. The character Sunday engages in puzzling and frustrating behavior as he leads his followers on what seems like a wild goose chase. As he is the leader and a type of God character, even the frustration the other characters feel and the time spent trying to make sense of Sunday’s behavior bind them more closely to him.

Mr. Sunday, like God defies every attempt to neatly categorize him. Because of this, his followers must think in totally new ways, which opens the way for a more meaningful and complex relationship. God is good and gives us good things much of the time. But if that is all we want God for He is not much more than a Divine vending machine. God frustrates us, puzzles us, and allows us to suffer to push us beyond the parent giver/infant receiver relationship into a deeper, more life giving relationship between God and human.

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Suffering—Alive in Pain

Ponder this: The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with His singing. Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV)

And this: Praise be to the God and Father of all compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 (NIV)

Suffering is not the opposite of living. In fact, anyone who has suffered greatly knows that we are very alive when we feel the excruciating pain of suffering. Suffering, seeking God, demanding answers, anger—these are the signs of life, even abundant life. The opposite of this is emotional deadness, emptiness, apathy, lack of curiosity and lack of seeking. This is not abundant life, and a way to avoid pain.

I have pondered the meaning of suffering probably more than I have any other concept in life, and talked to God about it for as long as I can remember. It wasn’t just an intellectual exercise. Angst can turn a person into a philosopher. In my life of work I explore the meaning of suffering with others daily. Even those who do not believe bring God onto conversations about suffering. Somehow suffering binds us to God.

When we suffer we do not feel powerful. Suffering takes us to places inside ourselves we would never choose to go otherwise. It can humble us, and help us see our small place in the universe. We have to mentally wander outside ourselves and our own lives and look at the rest of the world. Then we find we are not alone in our pain.

Frequently people will feel that no one’s suffering is as bad as theirs, or that theirs is not as bad as others. Often both ideas are a defense. Either I am special and get my sense of value from my unfortunate circumstance, or I give myself a pep talk to deny the reality of my pain. Auchwitz survivor and psychologist Victor Frankl said, “Never compare suffering. Everyone has their own Auchwitz.” If we just accept that suffering comes to us at some time in our life, we can learn the lesson it has to teach us.

While none of us would sign up for suffering, some of us—even those who have suffered greatly would not trade what we learned from the experience after it is over. Since every experience we have can offer an awareness of a different facet of God. In pain we get to know God in ways that it would be impossible to know Him otherwise. God can be for us what we have not yet needed or allowed God to be prior to our trials.

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The God We Cannot See

Some people will talk about their relationship with God as if God were a scolding, remote, impossible to please parent. God requires something that they can’t quite figure out but if they don’t they will not receive God’s goodness. These same folks will speak lovingly and enthusiastically about a lover, baseball, football, a rock star, movie star or some other unattainable person that evokes magical feelings in them. I hear tender attentiveness to the cherished object. I hear people experiencing something larger than themselves (even if they are agnostic). How often to people talk with this level of love and passion about God? How many people feel this adoration for God? I don’t know the answer to these questions but I am guessing it’s not enough.

People are made to worship and tend to be good worshippers of something. It begins when we are infants and totally dependent on our parents for life. They are all powerful and we are powerless. We are wired from birth to depend on someone far more powerful than we are. We we begin our journey in this world idealizing another. Even the agnostic Sigmund Freud realized this when in 1914 he wrote in A Schoolboy Psychology that our first template for God is our parents. When we are infants and toddlers we think of our parents as God, then soon after parents are not quite God but God-like. By about age five they are God’s assistants, maybe having a special hotline to God. When we are old enough to see our parents’ flaws we look for something to be the recipient of our need to to worship.

I know I projected God onto a human in those early years. Around age five, as a pee wee theologian, I believed that God worked as a clerk at our local supermarket. (That was before the movie “Oh God” came out but apparently someone else had the same idea about God’s involvement in the grocery business.) This man seemed so kind and gentle but I got suspicious when he said, “Hi Joe. How are you?” to my Dad, who somehow was in tight with God. This was a strange question for a God who already knew how we all were, my dad included. Also, I wondered why was God wearing glasses since he’s perfect. I concluded that it was a clever disguise to avoid exposing His undercover operation because even at age five I knew that God made us search hard for Him.

While all of us begin life thinking of God as a concrete person we can see, we are meant to use this only as a beginning place to know God as real. We are meant to emotionally and spiritually outgrow this need we have to make God something we can see, hear and hug. But unless we deliberately work at spiritual maturity, we do not grow. God seems disengaged and uncaring. Then we tend to project the passion meant for God onto a person, thing or experience on earth and miss the mysterious joy of relationship with an invisible God whose fingerprints are everywhere.

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The Free Will Mystery that Compels me to God

As a curious four year old, laying on my back on the grass of my front yard, I tried to look as far into the sky as I could and see if  I could get a glimpse of God. I never saw the white bearded grandfatherly giant I looked for, no matter how hard I scanned and squinted. So I formulated my first theology.

 Rather than decide that God is not involved with humans, I decided that his fat fingers vanished when they hit the atmosphere of earth.  We were controlled by God but we thought we were acting of our own free will, and we were too dumb to know the difference.   This theology was heavily informed by my experience of playing with Barbie dolls. I figured that like me as the Master and Controller of my dolls, and they passively did whatever I dictated, and in the same way we were putty in God’s hands.

I longed for my dolls to respond in some way independent of my directives.  Maybe they would have a little party going on when I came back to my bedroom. Maybe they would dress themselves for once and save me the trouble. I wondered if God felt the same, and liked it when we acted of our own volition. So just to entertain God and show him I had a mind of my own I would periodically do things that were out of character, for me and for most people—things weirder than just eating paste, one of the more typical childhood weirdnesses. I would make up new words, or walk backwards or draw and name creatures that didn’t exist. I still don’t know how God felt about this but my family still calls me “weird”.

As I grew I realized my four year old questions are the same as those of the most educated theologians for centuries—the mystery of free will versus predestination.  I read passages in the  Bible that point toward God’s involvement in our will like Proverbs 21:1 (NIV), “in the Lord’s hand the King’s heart is a stream of water that he channels toward all who please him.” 

On the other hand. The Bible points out our free will, like in Galatians 5:13 (NIV) which says, ”you, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather serve one another humbly in love.” This implies we have choices and are responsible for the decisions we make.

So I still don’t know the answer to these questions despite a lifetime of research, college, seminary and the rough and sometimes delightful classroom of life. But I still lay on my lawn and look toward heaven trying to find God. This is a blog about my search for truth, wisdom and joy by relationship with God. I don’t have answers to my theological questions but I do know I have grown in love, joy and peace in God as I traverse my inner and outer life. I am writing this to invite you to ponder God in ways that may help you cope in times of suffering and to open yourselves to love, peace and immense joy.