Psalm 27:4 reads:
One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.
This verse poses a problem for many of us: God is invisible. So how do we “gaze upon His beauty?” The Apostle Paul talks about seeing the invisible too, in 2 Corinthians 4:18:
We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
I believe that the struggle to see, understand, and appreciate the unseen realm lies at the root of the reasons why we don’t pray as constantly as we should, why we are afraid to listen to God, and why we have trouble trusting Him for concrete and specific things. After all, it is one thing to say that we trust God for provision when we have a significant balance in our bank account, it’s another to believe He will come through when you’re down to 50 cents and the rent is due tomorrow. We’re afraid to say it, but we struggle to understand how to relate, communicate with, and trust an invisible God Who lives in an invisible world that rules and outlasts our physical one.
We are born and grow up in that physical, material world. We learn to be accustomed to what we can see, hear, touch, and smell. We interact with what’s visible all day, every day. God did wire the ability in us to interact with the invisible, spiritual realm. But sin deadened it, and we must be born again by the Holy Spirit to regain that ability. He awakens it in us and helps us develop it. For that reason, every new believer has to get accustomed to relating to the invisible God and interacting with His invisible world. Churches are supposed to help their members do that, but I fear much of that got forgotten as we lowered the bar for “seekers” and substituted supernatural engagement with God in our services with visually appealing experiences patterned after worldly entertainment.
So we have to overcome a level of unfamiliarity with the spiritual world to get to the point where the Psalmist wants to be: in God’s sanctuary (which is His presence), gazing upon His beauty.
There is no magic formula for this, just ingredients. Five of them, to be precise. How they play out in your life depends on you.
First, there is God’s Word. It is rife with vivid descriptions of God in heaven, His deeds, His works, His thoughts, His precepts and designs for life, and His emotions. Spending time in the Word and reading it prayerfully gets us beyond mere information and brings us to the doorstep of His sanctuary where we can see His glory, His holiness, and the beauty of His perfection.
Secondly, there is the Holy Spirit. He is intimately connected to the Word. His presence in our inner being brings it alive in us. He makes it speak to us personally and opens the eyes of our hearts so we can look beyond the words and see God’s glory. That’s reading the Bible supernaturally. It begins with this prayer in Psalm 119:18, “Open my eyes, that I may behold beautiful things out of your law.” The ability to see God’s beauty in the Scriptures comes from God, administered in us by the Holy Spirit. If we only use our intellect and focus on facts and information, we miss the power of the Word to transform us and teach us how to live in God’s supernatural realm.
Thirdly, there is our imagination. It is the capability of our mind to read words and translate them into pictures. When we read the description of a scene in a novel, we use the words to picture it in our minds as if we were there. That happens with God’s Word, too. The Holy Spirit takes our imagination and helps it see the beauty of God in the unseen world.
Fourthly, there is faith. Faith is a way of looking at the things that are invisible and telling your soul that they are real, eternal, and trustworthy. Our faith is quickened by the Word, what it says to our imagination, and how it is illumined by the Holy Spirit. Faith needs to be exercised and used to grow. The more familiar we get with the unseen realm, the greater our faith in our invisible God doing specific things in answer to our prayers becomes.
Fifthly, there is solitude. Solitude is more than just being alone. It is being alone and away from distractions and noise that drags your mind back to the material, visible world. We need intentional freedom from distractions to exercise the first four ingredients. It has been discovered that the constant preoccupation with information in our digital age overtrains our mind’s ability to process facts but undermines our ability to think abstractly, i.e. to pray and meditate on Scripture, its life philosophies, and moral teachings. Do you think that is by accident? Satan does not want people to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, but on what he thinks is his beauty. After all, He fell because he became enthralled with his own beauty and wanted to be God. Now, in his vainglory, he wants humanity to worship him.
I’ve said this before, but this struggle is very real. Christians have to intentionally cultivate their ability to be in the unseen sanctuary of God’s presence and gaze upon His beauty. But at first, they have to want that. God doesn’t force Himself on us, He wants us to seek Him. And we seek what we deem valuable.
So If you find yourself constantly distracted from the invisible world of God’s kingdom by the clamor of our visible world and you realize that it is eroding your desire to be in His sanctuary and gaze upon His beauty, it is time for a reset. It begins with a reality check: do I really want to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord? Do I really love Him for Who He is and want to be with Him? Or am I mostly after what He can do for me?
More than once have I found myself losing my appetite for the things of God’s kingdom because I nibbled too much at the table of the world. I realized that lack of desire for Him grieved Him, and needed to ask the Holy Spirit to reignite my desire for God’s presence once more, and He has never failed to do so. He knows our struggle with distraction by the material world. He will gladly light a fire again in your inner being. But then it is up to you to fan that spark into flame and return your engagement with the invisible world of God and His kingdom to the center of your daily life. That is not an option. Despite the fact that our material world is immediate and concrete, it is temporary, corrupt, and devoted to destruction. The invisible is perfect and eternal. We must learn to be comfortable in it because we are citizens of its kingdom.
Make a decision today to learn how to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and ask the Holy Spirit to help you. He won’t let you down!
[Photo credit: Simon Migaj]