Oh, to See God!

Scriptures reveal that the Ancients longed to see the face of God.  We too, have a longing to know God.  For most of us in New Thought, our understanding of God as anthropomorphic, the image I playfully call “the guy in the sky with the beard and the book,” has shifted  We’ve heard and studied and affirmed – even if it’s not been totally internalized, “There is one presence and one power, God.”  Our understanding of God evolved, though our longing remains as primal as ever.  In our fast paced, materially focused world, many of us are not quite sure what to do with our desire.  We still want to SEE God.

Do you see the face of God in your beloved?  In your co-workers?  In your children or grandchildren? Do you see the face of God when you gaze across the ocean, or stare at the night sky or view the mountains? Do you see God in the images of war and unrest?  In the moon? Do you see the face of God in the haunted eyes of someone begging?   In the wild flowers?  In a busy city street?  You get the idea.  If there is truly “one presence and one power,” is there any spot where God is not?  Yet we have this sense we are not seeing God and we have this longing. 

On our “Journey Into the Light,” let us honor and celebrate the longing to want more, to be more, to see more.  Perhaps if, rather than working so hard to get away from or stop that which we don’t prefer, we are vigilant in honoring that longing?  Won’t we, as the ancients say, “Pierce the veil,” and behold the presence of God – everywhere?  What if our “Journey Into the Light” begins with leaning into our longing until we see the thousands upon thousand faces of God?

Journey Into the Light: Eyes to See

In Unity we are taught to see beyond appearances. Ideally, we see the presence of God in all things. A powerful question to ask is, “How is God present in what I see?” What is the underlying meaning of what I see? Each of us must be highly attuned to spiritual awareness as we ask the second question as our intellect considers itself an expert on what something means. If we have a high level of certainty about something, that is often a clue that we are being fooled by our intellect and not looking deeply enough. The deeper we look, the more attuned we are to the mysteries of life. This journey facilitates a deeper relationship with spiritual principles and thus spiritual seeing. Do we see wholeness, beauty, joy, order, love, harmony and so forth? A better question than “Do we?” which can be answered with a “yes” or “no,” is “How do we see spiritual principle?” Do you see how this is an invitation to look deeper? And seeing, we might ask, “And what’s another way you see God in this?” God is everywhere present. Good is everywhere present. If we’re not seeing it, it’s not because God is not present. It’s because we are not seeing.

Practice: Today, look beyond appearances and invite the living Christ presence within you to attune your consciousness to see the light.

Bible reading: Matthew 13:1-11 The Parable of the Sower

Jesus teaches in parables, guiding his listeners to see beyond the appearance of things to a deeper meaning. In the parable of the sower, Jesus provides an image familiar to an agrarian culture. Planting seeds is an ordinary occurrence, and all planters realize the importance of the environment for the health of the plant.

Numerous analogies arise from this metaphor, and the listener is invited to apply them to his/her life. At one level the listener is the soil. When a seed of a new idea is planted for you, are you open and receptive or do you dismiss the idea in some manner? Jesus distinguishes between ignoring the idea (lands beside the road where it birds eat them) and discounting it (thorns come and choke the idea). When you share ideas, do you realize that many of your ideas will not be received? It’s just the nature of sharing new ideas. Are you willing to continue planting idea seeds?

There are many ways to interpret this scripture; however, what we are looking at today is that Jesus spoke in parables. He is pointing to deeper meanings. Spiritual messages are invisible and too deep to be readily articulated. He recognizes that the interpretation is dependent upon the consciousness of the listener.

To “Journey Into the Light,” we must look to the deeper meanings of things. We are to have “eyes to see.” In Unity, we teach the importance of looking beyond appearances. Only then will we see beyond the “things of this world” and glimpse the divine.

Today’s message is an invitation to “Journey Into the Light” by simply realizing that what you think you see may not be what is really present and that what is really present is divine.