Seeing God

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (1 John 4:12)

I don’t know about you but I was raised imagining God looked like this:

Calvary hermitage, Alcora, Spain, 18th century.

There are many reasons I left the church and turned my back on God in my 20s but this image sums up the biggest reason – that white God sitting on a throne in the clouds was not a God I could relate to.

When I returned to the church, I had to reconcile that image with the reality of who God is. Because God is amazingly greater than the image above. 

As I’ve been reading the bible I’ve tried to understand who God is. God is a whole lot of adjectives. Love, Grace, Mercy, Compassion, and more.

But who IS He? What does he look like? I love the verse quoted above. It helps me remember that it’s not a question to struggle with ever again. 

God is in all of us. I believe completely that part of our purpose is recognizing and honoring that in each other. God is love. By loving God, we can love each other and in that love, see Him. 

Thank you, God, for helping me love you and through that love see others with love. Please help me keep working to embrace that pure love because it is one of the most amazing things in the Universe. Amen.