the Unseen World

When you approach me in stillness and trust, you are strengthened.

You need a buffer zone around you in order to focus on things that are unseen.

Since I am invisible, you must not let your senses dominate your thinking.

The curse of this age is overstimulation of the senses, which blocks out awareness of the unseen world.

 

The tangible world still reflects my Glory, to those who have eyes that see and ears to hear.

Spending time alone with Me is the best way to develop seeing eyes and hearing ears.

The goal is to be aware of unseen things even as you live out your life in the visible world.

(Jesus Calling-- June 15)

 

When Jesus began His public ministry, He was led into the wilderness by the Spirit, where He fasted forty days.  When Paul began his ministry as a Christian, he went into the desert for three years; there he was taught by God the things that would change the world forever.  Even Luke Skywalker had to learn the unseen world by going into the wilderness to learn from a Jedi master.

 

If we would approach the things of the Spirit of God, we also need to distance ourselves for a time from the world itself -- not that it is evil and we are 'pure' -- but that we are so much a part of the world that it is hard for us to enter into the world of spirit and of truth.  The reason people go on retreats is to learn to listen to the 'small, still voice' inside, the voice that gets overwhelmed by all the other voices around us.

 

Paul said, "When I was a child, I thought like a child....but now I have put away the things of a child."  We are so much a part of the world's system that we automatically think like the world and not like God.  The only way to begin to see the unseen world is to spend some time away from the world's system and to turn to the Living God who is waiting to show us "great and glorious things of which we know nothing."

 

God Himself wants to teach us; He wants to show us the world He made in all its glory -- but we need to learn how to listen to Him:

 

This is what the Lord says--

Your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:

"I am the Lord your God,

who teaches you what is best for you,

who directs you in the way you should go.

If only you had paid attention to my commands,

your peace would have been like a river,

your righteousness like the waves of the sea.

Your descendants would have been like the sand,

your children like its numberless grains;

their name would never be cut off

nor destroyed from before me" (Is. 48:17-19).

 

"Paying attention to His commands" does not necessarily mean "obeying the law" only, but listening to the small, still voice that wants to guide us moment by moment.  "If you love Me," says Jesus, "you will obey my commands, and the Father and I will come to dwell with you."  It is their voice we hear speaking within us:  "Not that way; go this way" from moment to moment.

 

I know it's hard to believe, but as gorgeous as is the visible world, the unseen world of the Spirit is even more beautiful.