Opening Our Eyes to the God Who Hides in Plain Sight

13May10 Opening Our Eyes to the God Who Hides in Plain Sight

This is another installment in a series that has been adapted from my 11-part CD teaching series on A. W. Tozer’s spiritual classic, The Pursuit of God.

In the last installment of this series I portrayed a somewhat exaggerated scenario to describe what it’s like to search for something, only to discover that what you’ve been running around looking for has been right there in front of you, hiding in plain sight all along? Nowhere is this fact truer than when it comes to your search for God himself. The Bible teaches that God is right here, right now. In Proverbs 1:20-21, Solomon personifies the wisdom of God as a woman with a clear message: “Wisdom shouts in the street, she lifts her voice in the square; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the gates of the city, she utters her sayings . . .” But what is the response of those around her? “. . . I called, and you refused; I stretched out my hand, and no one paid attention; and you neglected all my counsel, and did not want my reproof . . .” (1:24-25). And therein lies the basic problem for all of us: God is so obviously present while we are so presently oblivious.

As with each preceding chapter, we find a core question imbedded in this fifth chapter of A. W. Tozer’s splendid work, The Pursuit of God, which he titles “The Universal Presence.” So far, we’ve had to come face to face with the following decisions: Chapter 1 – Will I follow hard after God? Chapter 2 – Will I pay the price and enjoy the blessedness of possessing nothing? Chapter 3 – Will I do my part in removing the veil that separates me from God? And Chapter 4 – Will I progress in my quest of apprehending God? Chapter 5 will force us to ask and answer this question, “Will I open my eyes and behold the universal presence of a God who is hiding in plain sight?”

In the previous chapter, Tozer challenged us to not let our pursuit of God be distracted by the things we see in the visible world. In this chapter he will challenge us to let our pursuit of God be guided by what God has created in the visible world. These truths are not contradictory, but in fact are complementary. To the person of immature faith, God’s creation can become an obstacle that blocks their view. But to the person of maturing faith, God’s creation can become an object lesson that sharpens their view. That is, if we can develop our faith in such a way that enables us to see God present in the physical world all around us, we may soon have a faith that is robust enough to enable us to see his presence in the spiritual world around us. Hence, Tozer reminds us that God is everywhere present and is as near to you as the nose on your face – literally.