Seeing God

King Solomon writes,

    “There are those who curse their fathers & do not bless their mothers;
those who are pure in their own eyes & yet are not cleansed of their filth;
those whose eyes are ever so haughty, whose glances are disdainful;
those whose teeth are swords & whose jaws are set with knives to devour the poor from the earth, & the needy from among mankind.”

    Solomon is said to be the wisest man to ever be born of this world. In his reign as King of Jerusalem, as a Son of David, he acquired more wealth, knowledge & insights than any man before or after. With his esteem & irrefutably wise proverbial additions to the written Word of God he has grounds to be a teacher that can instruct, guide & warn. Here, he warns. He warns us to watch for the danger in others that see them selves as pure by their own standards. He also speaks directly to the reader, to us as individuals, as we may ignorantly see our selves as pure yet are covered by a veil of filth.

How is it that we cannot see our own filth? Our own sin? Or the wayward lives we often lead? Why is purity even important in the first place?

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    I grew up just outside of a small town in Colorado. This was the sort of town where there is not much to do in the summers between graduating classes in the public school system. Small towns leave fewer boundaries for adventures I feel, & being that I lived outside city limits, my home was a refuge of  adventure & relaxation.  Whether on my own or with my friends, time was often spent devising ways to fill this void with the best experiences we could envision through our narrowed scope. We would have days spent on the jetski pulling each other around on my uncle’s old 1970‘s surfboard or nights where bonfires were large enough to make the news if they had taken place in any regular town.

    Perhaps the highlight & major attraction of my home in the country was the small lake that bordered my family’s property. This lake was cause for many sunburns, surfboard & ski endeavors. The lake was small & the base of it was entirely composed of mud. Years before my family had ever owned property here the murky, muddy waters were named appropriately as, Old Stink-Hole Lake as the water also had a certain “herbal” odor to compliment it’s murkiness. Only later would name of the lake be reconsidered & be eloquently retitled to Bacon Lake. The name has been unchanged since.

    Many of my memories pulled from my youth centered around this lake. I had innumerable birthday parties, boating escapes & camp outs while on Bacon Lake’s shore. To this day I have an incredible fondness of this place because of the joy I experienced there with friends & the countless times I watched the sunset over the water with no one to talk to but God. I can remember nearly every time I stepped foot into the water. Each time I did I watched, like a magician’s act, my feet immediately disappear beneath it’s surface. The water was never clear enough to see an inch below the surface & there was no amount of kicking or thrashing I could do to make it any clearer, so that is what I learned to love.

    My experiences in my youth help me better imagine something. The past several week my mind has been brooding over an idea first presented to me by the king of Christian illustrations, C.S. Lewis. He wrote on the concept that God cannot show Himself fully to those whose mind & body are in the wrong conditions.

    “Just as sunlight, though it has no favorites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.” -C.S.L.

    God can reveal Himself to us as He choses, of that there is no question. But how can we see him clearly or reflect His love to others as we remain impure & filthy? How can we see Him as our eyes remain murky & clouded?

    The solution to filthiness, the way to cleanliness is not something we can undertake on our own. As I could not do any amount of work to kick the murkiness out of the lake so I cannot do any amount of work to conquer my very self. I cannot even understand the vastness & complexity of that old lake before me, let alone the vastness & complexity of me. As I strive to fix myself I metaphorically thrash around in my murkiness unable to see an inch before me or within me. Yet, we must be purified to see God. Just as the lens of a camera must be dusted to take a clear picture of what lies ahead of it.

    We could probably envision a piece of machinery that could clean the murky depths of Bacon Lake or consider a cloth to dust the lens of a camera but are we so simple as they? Can we be cleansed by such simple means? I think a complication with this is seeing ourselves as purely physical & neglecting our spiritual selves. The sixth chapter of Ephesians speaks to this matter.  The only way to find our selves pure is through Jesus & His work for us. Nothing of our own. This is why God sent His only son, so that we could see the Father again through Jesus’s great sacrifice. Jesus’s greatest act of mercy & love on the cross gave us a way to come home again, as a prodigal son returns to a loving father. He gives us a way to be pure that relies totally on Him since He knows us immeasurably better than we know ourselves.

    If we want to see beneath the waters surface the water must be clean. If we want to take a picture in full clarity the lens must be without blemish. If we want to see God, we need Jesus.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
Matthew 5:8

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me-put it into practice. And the God of Peace will be with you.”
Phillipians 4:8