“Have you ever seen Him?” A six (and a half) year old asked me over the dinner table.
Pause.
This is one of those situations where words fail.
If asked this as a 19 year old “Christian,” I would have said, “no, but…” and stammered before coming up with some sort of faith-rationalizing answer. Maybe quoting some verse. Probably fuming in agitation at feeling naive and ignorant.
Yet when asked this today, four years later, as a 23 year old having actually encountered Jesus and accepted His life, my best answer is still only: “not as I see you sitting across from me.”
Spoiler alert for those yet to have “seen Him” but who will:
With the Holy Spirit, we never have to rationalize our faith.
Without the Holy Spirit, we can try and argue ourselves into belief (for our sake and others) – but when push comes to shove, our hodgepodge foundation of this and that preached to us and fed to us by our parents, elders, and educators will crumble into the inferno of the conscious mind we call past.
I sit here mulling over what I could have said to this child who I know is intelligent beyond his age. To say too much risks tripping over my own words in attempting to explain how we see our unseen God.
This is one of those situations where words fail, ah, but I’m comforted that Jesus does not.
I have never seen Jesus. Not yet, anyways.
Yet I have this crazy thing called faith… It's this marvelous concept I cannot for the life of me explain, but (I chuckle) it’s the entire reason I sit here, day after day, writing about Him.
How delightfully aggravating!
And I’ll never be able to explain with my words. There are no words to explain the Word Himself.1
He just… Is.2
Ha. How’s that for a paradox?
1. John 1:1
2. Revelation 1:8
May the Lord send His Spirit to reveal Himself to all those who seek. To the young and old alike.
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