JEREMIAH 29:13

And you shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart.

EXODUS 33:32

And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts.

EXODUS 33:11

And the Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend.

EXODUS 33:2

There shall no man see me, and live.

JOHN 1:18

No man hath seen God at any time.

COLOSSIANS 1:15

The invisible God

1  TIMOTHY 6:16

Whom no man hath seen nor can see.

“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”  ~ Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer ... high on my list of people I'd love to spend some time with.  I spend time with some of the words he left behind, and ... this was a special person.  

I'm thinking, lately, about God.  My husband buddy is uncomfortable with this conversation ("Are you doubting the existence..."), so ... I sit and mess with these thoughts during this time ... blog time. And I remember these words of guidance from Bonhoeffer as I thought about searching for God with one's whole heart ... my heart is becoming more whole.  The very idea of searching for something implies that one believes there is something to be found.  The question is ... How does my belief affect, uh, me?  One way to look at that question is if this were absent how would I respond ... .  A while back, maybe two or three years ago,  I wondered, okay farther back then that and broader ... I wonder why God let's bad stuff happen.  And on a personal level ... why does he let bad stuff happen to me.  I know my own dad would have kept bad stuff from happening.  So ... that question is not unique to me and as simple as it is the answers are complex, perhaps even to the point of being unknowable.  It's easy for me to see why people are messed up ... .  I'm just really glad that I'm able enough to search for God ... relationship with an invisible God.  Pretty weird stuff.  I have a couple of friends who I visit with a bit.  It's tricky business communicating with people at a distance rather then face to face.  Sorta like those sorta friendships, I can't see God ... I can't hear Him ... we have never touched ... I don't have any idea how He might smell, probably doesn't smell like anything right?  I seem to suffer from a lack of information with which to know God.  And ... He spent some time with Adam and Eve but due to circumstances (not beyond His control) I've never seen Him. And, I've said before that I would probably pass flat out if I saw an angel ... I don't doubt that my heart wouldn't be up to seeing God ... I'm happy to wait until I'm dead for that.  So ... no wonder things get confused and misconstrued.  Honestly, Bonhoeffer is on to an excellent idea here, to regard people in light of what they may suffer, rather then their particular failings.  I am happy to have come to a place where I would like to see more of God ... God more as he is rather then who/how I would like for him to be.  What I have suffered was causing my eyes to look towards him wondering why he didn't ...  hmmm, rescue me?, make the pain stop? ... fix stuff?  ... and, I concluded that He was just too busy elsewhere, like maybe He's only big enough to do a zillion things at one time, and my little life was outside His steady care.

The "seeing God" scriptures specifically express two opposing things ... one, that a few people have seen God, and two, that no one can see God  (and/or no one can live after seeing God).  Perfect support for a skeptic's case ... yeah, the scriptures are inconsistent, they are, or is it my understanding of what I'm reading ... could it be me unable to get it?  I can see in my own little life places where two totally opposing things are absolutely true.  I definitely want what I definitely don't want ... both with my whole heart.  

I am freezing but cautious of the heat that melts my frozenness ... unfrozen me would be uncontained.  I am me in my many different states ... all necessarily me, some more or less capable then others.  

What if God is like that (not the less capable part ... the this and that part).  

I see a lake ... people are swimming there, immersed, skiing over the surface of ... electricity is being generated there ... etc, everything lake ... I don't see the water evaporating, I see clouds, I don't see the humidity from which they are formed ... I see ice floating in my water glass ... I don't believe ice can float in less then water, on thin air ... I do know that cirrus clouds are ice ... uh oh ... .  Water is ... pretty much everywhere in several different states, so different in fact, that I don't even think of it as water ... liquid water, gaseous water, solid water ... visible, invisible ... encasing, impermeable ... life sustaining, I could die there. What percentage of me is ... water?

These are my night thoughts.  Just little notes this morning.

I seek the God I've known my entire life ... my expectations about what I will find are slowly dying.  They die in a way that gives life to my faith.  Turned out that God had time for even me ... I couldn't see Him, but now I am certain he was there all along.  

And, did you know that the Bible says one's tears are kept in a vessel.

You number my wanderings: put you my tears into your bottle: are they not in your book? ~Psalm 56:8 I think that means He's see what's going on with us and ... that He cares. I'm okay with invisible yet present.  I can easily see where He has been in my own life, and maybe even more then that.  I trust him.  For now, I float.