Seeing

Right now I am sitting on my bed the window is open and my dog is laying behind me on my pillow (the dog is spoiled). I look outside, the sun is shining, our large oak tree is shading our back yard, and there is a soft breeze blowing.

It truly is a lovely day today. Just enough chill in the air that I am enjoying my 3rd cup of coffee today.

My mind is heavy. So much is going on these days. I feel an ever looming presence of darkness around the world. Yet another mass shooting happened this week past. The two individuals who orchestrated this tragedy - my heart breaks thinking of them. What went so wrong in their lives that they would attack and kill people who were celebrating at a Christmas Party. What went wrong in their brains that they would leave behind a 6 month old child.

I believe that last part weighs heaviest on me. I have a child twice that age, and now a 3 year old. Both are still my babies, even if my daughter does insist that she is big. We traveled the day after Thanksgiving to Pennsylvania. Both did amazing on all the flights. But going through the airport I opted to babywear our son. And that decision flagged me for additional screening. Every check in had my hands being swabbed for residue of some kind.

Let that sink in. Because I was wearing my child on my body I had to be swabbed for residue. What on earth is wrong with people! When it sunk in personally, my blood went cold. There are ladies, women out there who would sacrifice not only their own life but the life of their child in the name of....martyrdom, religion....stupidity.

Luckily, in spite of Paris, and all the tragedies going on in the world, we traveled without event. But it has had me thinking. I am thankful to God for our safe travels and to His angels for guiding and protecting our way.

Our Pastor, Jon, a while back wrote a booklet on the topic of angels. Some think that angels are the chubby cheeked babies flying around with a cloth diaper, but that is not what I envision. The Bible numerous times talks of Michael, a mighty warrior of an angel who does what God commands. I envision a personage that is strong, looming, tall and a presence to be reckoned with. I have read the books by Frank E. Peretti, This Present Darkness & Piercing the Darnkness. In fact I am going to reread both (normally this time of year I grab all things Christmas to read, but this year I feel I need to do things differently). Both of these books talk about normal (well kinda) lives of people, but shows the parallel of what is going on in the spiritual realm. Angles delivering messages to each other, fighting the powers of darkness, darkness trying to take people over, prayer strengthening angels.

Oh, Rhema! Prayer once again is in my life. Have you ever thought that maybe you have an angel in your life, but that angel is weak because your prayer life is weak? That maybe if you started to praying regularly (like going to the gym) your angel would be stronger and more able to do God's will for you.

Now for the meat of what I want to convey today. We read out of Philippians this morning in Sunday School:

Philippians 2:6-8 (NKJV)
⁶ who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 
⁷ but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

If the verse is unclear to you, this is a description of Jesus. Of the wonderful deed he did by becoming human.

From there we connected Isaiah 6:1-7 (NKJV):

6 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. 

² Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 

³ And one cried to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
The whole earth is full of His glory!”

⁴ And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.

⁵ So I said:

“Woe is me, for I am undone!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King,
The Lord of hosts.”

⁶ Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. 

⁷ And he touched my mouth with it, and said:

“Behold, this has touched your lips;
Your iniquity is taken away,
And your sin purged.”

We lingered a while over the verses describing the seraphim. We discussed trying to imagine what they look like. We voiced trying to imagine the entire scene. How breath taking it would be. And how terrifying.

Hollywood is pretty good about creating creatures on screen that come from books. But I think even Hollywood would fail at creating this scene.

My mind carried the thought that maybe more people would believe if they could see the seraphim like the one's described in Isaiah. But I captured that thought. I realized that seeing such majestic creatures is going to be reserved for those who believed without seeing. The Bible tells us that angels are the messengers of God, that the go between earth and heaven doing the Father's will. We do not see them with our human eyes, but they are there. By faith we believe it. My mind further reasoned people say that if they could see Jesus they would believe, but humanity has already proven this to be a false statement. Jesus walked the earth and was severely rejected to the point of death.

From the Book of John, Chapter 20:

²⁴ Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 
²⁵ The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”
So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”
²⁶ And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” 
²⁷ Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”
²⁸ And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”
²⁹ Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

When we get to heaven, I believe our eyes of faith are going to see things that our minds on earth cannot even fathom.

And as it is the season of Christmas, the words about Santa ring in my ears, "Seeing isn't believing, believing is seeing."