Don’t you think that God could have made it easier for us to know Him and serve Him if we could see Him? Doesn’t serving an invisible God seem — unrealistic? He could have set this up any way He wanted. Why this way?

I actually asked God that question. Here’s what I came away with. If we could see God, that would mean that He’d have to be in a certain place for us to go to, like a temple. If we were to go to Him in His temple, we’d naturally approach Him with a sense of awe. There’d always been a feeling of unworthiness in us because of the distance that a physical presence would impose. He would always be LORD GOD ALMIGHTY, the somewhat frightening figure we’d face, no matter how nice He wanted to look. Then we would leave there and go on about our lives.

But God understands relationship better than we do. When He puts His Spirit in us, we become one. He’s with us always. He knows our hopes and fears. We can feel His presence in a way that approaching Him in a temple would never offer. And when we go on about our lives, and He comes too. He never wanted distance. He always wanted relationship. And He didn’t want it forced. When we choose to serve Him, as in invisible God, He knows we mean it.

Serving an invisible God takes faith, but once He responds to that faith, He becomes more real than we thought. Faith in what we can’t see becomes the greater reality. Yes, it could have been different, but God’s ways are higher than ours. Thankfully.