“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
2 Corinthians 4:18
The strength of the Lord is a moving presence amidst our lives, yet so often is it also an unseen presence. It is the invisible hand of a God we cannot begin to understand the full nature or the complete character of even as we find ourselves contemplating the purest quality by which He dwells in. It defies the minds of men, visible in all that is created by His hand, yet invisible in how it weaves together all that He has formed and the grace by which He dwells in all of these things.
Yet that is the deeper blessing of our Heavenly Father that makes his miracles all the more blessed and wondrous...
Consider for a moment the nature of that which is seen and that which remains unseen. What we see it is constrained by time and by place. It cannot be where it is not visible, it does nothing except that which is observable and it is limited only to actions that are evident in our own perceptions and understanding. God is not bound by the same rules of the temporal existence. He does not need to be noticed to work, nor does there need to be discernible evidence that makes His presence obvious to us. He can and does move as He will, with or without our understanding.
In a world so prone to chaos and darkness, where captivity and bondage come so near at hand and where the unrighteous rise while the righteous seem to fall, the unseen presence of God must be then held to with an ever present faith in our hearts. Without it all we are left with is the visible presence of this world, and in it the hopelessness of man that arises with the veil that so often covers our eyes.
With it though we come to understand that all of this is temporary. Like a fleeting moment it flashes before it with the blink as God shows forth His grace in our lives. Whatever grim estate may be cast over the hearts and the souls, the bodies and the minds of men, the spirit is called to a greater optimism amidst the expectations that we can place upon the hand of God as it moves through our lives and in our lives. Here he lets us not be cast forever to a pit of despair, but rather moves through us and in us to make himself wondrously known to us, even as we cannot observe Him with our temporal gaze.
Meditate on that dear brothers and sisters and ask of yourselves what presence would you rely on, the ones that are constrained by the laws of life and this temporal existence or the one that knows no limits or bounds, who moves without hindrance or obstacle placed before Him? The one that can only act within the confines of its physical and mental restrictions or the one that moves past all boundaries and borders as it shows there are no edge to the frontiers of His blessed assurance and encompassing hope?
Let us pray:
In all that we are and all that we hope in do we place our trust in Your nature O Lord as we look upon the unseen and observe it’s encompassing grace weaving itself through all that You have created. Be then not far off from Your children, showing unto them that the challenges and the adversity of this existence shall remain temporary as You remain unending in amidst the triumphs that You offer to the soul.
Show unto us that the captivity and the poverty, the destitution and the oppression, the slavery and the persecution of this mortal world shall soon fade as you put to flight the tyrannies of the body and the mind, the spirit and the soul, showing forth Your eternal grace amidst the lives of Your people. Show unto us that whatever the affliction may be that seeks to so bind us there is no chains that cannot be broken as You move so effortlessly through the course of human events to make manifest Your love and compassion in the lives of Your people.
This, O Lord, is the faithful manifestation of Your mercy as Your children are ransomed and liberty is brought to bear in their lives as Your Spirit moves through their lives. As we have seen it through the sacrifice and the freedom that came through Christ show it once more in the temporal as well as the eternal that no more shall we find hardship and despair gripping and strangling the life from Your creation, robbing from them the integrity and the value You have given unto their lives.
Then O Lord shall we find hope in the manifestations of Your love as it reveals itself to be the guiding presence that forever makes way our path and lifts us from all stumbling blocks that our mortal eyes place in front of it, for we shall observe the mercy and the grace, the compassion and the love Your intangible ways make so tangible to us.
In the name of Your Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with You in the Kingdom, one God, world without end, Amen.
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