Are You Really Looking For God?

In "My Mom’s Guide to the Art of Living" researcher Arthur C. Brooks talks about his mother’s gift of painting. He writes:  
 
Over her many-decades career… her one constant in her work, however, was excellent technique… Growing up, I could draw a little myself and enjoyed doing so, but I never had her talent. Once, I asked her how I could improve. I expected her to say something like “Practice 10,000 hours.” Instead, she told me to look at what I wanted to draw. This baffled me because that’s obviously what I thought I had been doing, as I said to her.
 
“You probably aren’t,” she explained. “People almost never actually look carefully at anything; they glance at it and then rely on their brain to fill in the details—which it doesn’t, leading to crummy drawing.” So I did as I was told, and looked long and hard at what I wanted to draw at that moment: a tree. I found that I noticed much more about its contours, colors, and shadows. I drew each detail, meticulously—and sure enough, it turned out to be a pretty well-drawn tree.
 
More than that, I loved the experience of really looking: It was both creative and immersive. What my mom was telling me to do, I came to understand, was savor the encounter of seeing something deeply and drawing it carefully. And this kind of savoring, it turns out, can be applied to many areas of life in ways that help us become more adept at living and much happier.
 
As I read that, I couldn’t help but think about how often we look at scripture and yet do not really see. We look at God and do not really look deeply into who He is, we do not see the magnitude of His glory and majesty and tremble in His presence.  
 
Isaiah said, “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for 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!”” (Isaiah 6:1–5)
 
John said, “At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal. And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”” (Revelation 4:2–8)
 
This is our God! So, today ask God to give you a glimpse of Himself and His glory and then bow your heart in Worship to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And remember, God is always trying to take us someplace new. I love being your Pastor!
 
For God’s Glory Alone,  
 
Pastor Ray