Seeing the Invisible

Everything in life depends on what you look at. by Dr. Desmond Ford

Life is tough. Once you get out of early childhood, living is terribly hard, for most people. When I see people getting up in years, I think they deserve a Purple Heart just for getting there.

The Bible tells us how to cope with a tough life:

By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king's anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible (Hebrews 11:24-27, NIV).

This passage says we can endure when we see Him who is invisible.

My sad experience is that when trouble comes, I am tempted to look at the trouble only. Things will get no better until I find myself repeatedly praying, "Lord, don't just fix the trouble; fix me! Make it more natural for me to see You as bigger, higher, stronger, than this threat that faces me."

In burning bushes

It's not natural for us to look to God, the Invisible. We have to learn to do it. Moses, the great leader of the Israelites, didn't learn it easily. It's been said about Moses that he was forty years learning to be somebody in Pharaoh's court; forty years learning to be nobody, looking after sheep. Then God could use him for forty years.

But Moses nearly blew it after the first forty. He became a murderer. At the end of the next forty, he saw a bush aglow with God. He thought, What sort of a bush is this that can be aglow with God? So Moses drew near to see what sort of a bush could burn like that.

God spoke to Moses out of the bush and, in effect, said, "Moses, any old bush will do. Moses, you were burned out forty years ago. You were like one of these shriveled desert bushes. But if you will receive Me, if you will accept My presence, you needn't burn out."

Any old bush will do. It's not the bush that's important. It's the God who's in the bush.

Moses endured as seeing Him who is invisible. We must do it, too. But it takes practice; it does not come naturally. In every trial, I find myself inclined to get wrapped up with the problem. Finally, after much anguish, conscience smites me and says, "Des, you should be looking at God, not at the problem."

In fiery furnaces

Daniel was an Old Testament prophet. When his three friends were in the fiery furnace, their enemies thought they were going to be burned to a crisp. Then they saw God walking with them.

King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished; and he rose in haste and spoke, saying to his counselors, "Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?" They answered and said to the king, "True, O king."

"Look!" he answered, "I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God" (Daniel 3:24, 25, NKJV).

The only things Daniel's friends lost in the fiery furnace were their bonds. They were burned away, leaving the faithful three in perfect freedom.

God is with us in our fiery furnaces. We don't have to bear anything alone. This is why the biblical writer, Paul, could say, "Most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me" (2 Corinthians 12:9, NKJV).

With infirmities

Living with infirmities is not easy to do. I hate infirmities; they get in the way of work, it seems to me. But God knows better. He says, "You won't work properly until you learn how to live with your infirmities, until you learn that power has nothing to do with you; it's Mine!"

The record in Corinthians is clear. The Lord said to Paul, "I'm not going to take away your infirmities, Paul. My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness" (see 2 Corinthians 12:9). We are to endure as seeing Him who is invisible.

Paul expressed it another way in 2 Corinthians 4:18. It's a great verse -- a paradox. It talks about doing the impossible: "We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (NIV).

Paul is saying, "Don't look at he things that are seen. Look at the things that are not seen." How do you look at the things that are not seen? How can you not look at the things that are seen?

Temporary troubles

It's Paul's way of saying (because the preceding verse talks about troubles), "Listen. All your problems down here are temporary. Don't concentrate on them."

If we stay overnight at a motel, and the bed's not much good or the traffic's noisy, or there are a lot of drunks just a couple of rooms down -- if we've got any sense, we won't lose our cool over it. We'll say, "I'm only here one night. I don't have to live like this every day."

Paul is saying that things that are seen are temporary. Everything in this whole world is temporary. William James, America's greatest philosopher, made this beautiful statement:

All natural goods perish. Riches take wings, fame is a breath, love is a cheat. Youth, health, and pleasure vanish. Can things whose end is dust and disappointment be the real goods that our souls require? We need a life not correlated with death, a friend of good that will not perish, a good, in fact, that flies beyond the goods of nature.

The trouble of no troubles

Paul says, "Don't look at the things that are seen; the good ones or the bad ones are temporary." If they're good, thank God for them. If they're bad, thank God for them, because they'll do you more good than the good.

The worst thing in the world is to have no troubles. There's no greater trouble than that. The heaviest cross to bear is to have no cross; it destroys us. We're like kites: We go up when we are against the wind.

Paul says, "Don't look at the things that are seen; they are transient. Look at the things that are not seen; they are real."

Seen and unseen

We talk about electromagnetic forces, but no one has ever seen them. We all know about gravity. We couldn't hold together without gravity, but it too is invisible.

The reality about human beings is that we hardly dare look at ourselves. The amount of solid matter in each one of us is about the size of a pinhead; the rest is space. So we are a little bit of mud and lots of space. That's me, that's you. But because of the invisible power of God, we look something grander than that, don't we? Some of us look wonderful -- seen in Christ!

We look not on the things that are seen; they are transient. We look at the things that are not seen; they are eternal.

Taken from an issue of Good News Unlimited. Used with permission.

Dr. Desmond Ford is president of Good News Unlimited in Auburn, CA. You may e-mail him or GNU at gnu@goodnewsunlimited.org.

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