How’s Your ‘Face Time’ With God Going?

Among the great technological advances we’ve enjoyed in recent years is seeing people we’re talking to by phone. First came Skype in the early 2000s, enabling people to view and talk with folks even across thousands of miles. ‘What an wonder!’ we thought back then.

 

Newer innovations in more recent years rendered Skype practically obsolete. Due to COVID-19 shelter-in-place edicts, the business and professional world had to find innovative ways to continue face-to-face communications. Zoom was a primary beneficiary. Launched in 2013, it became a go-to means for clusters of workers to meet virtually for extended periods of time.

 

Meanwhile, FaceTime enhanced interactions with friends and family members via smartphone. What a marvel to be able to communicate face-to-face with people even in other parts of the world.

 

Don’t you sometimes wish we could face to face with God, using heavenly ‘FaceTime’ methodology? Before shaking our heads thinking that’s impossible, maybe we need to reconsider.

 

It’s true that when Moses was talking with God on Mt. Sinai and asked, “Now show me Your glory” (Exodus 33:18), the Lord essentially replied, “Nope.” Instead, He instructed Moses to stand in the cleft of a rock and covered the Israelite leader’s eyes with His hand: “I will cause all My goodness to pass in front of you…. But you cannot see My face, for no one may see Me and live…I will remove My hand and you will see My back, but My face must not be seen” (Exodus 33:19-23).

 

Reading that we might conclude, ‘That means we can’t ‘FaceTime’ with God.’ And yet, it is possible to “see” Him in many other ways. As devotional writer Arthur Jackson stated recently in Our Daily Bread, “The ability to see the person we’re talking to on the phone is relatively new, but face time with God – prayer with a conscious awareness of being in His presence – is not.” 

 

In the Scriptures we do find occasions when people experienced a physical manifestation of God. Case in point, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, forced into a blazing furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar. They had refused to worship the king’s gods or his golden image.

 

Daniel 3:25 tells us immediately afterward the king peered into the fire and saw not three men, but four: “Look? I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.” Apparently Daniel’s friends did enjoy some fiery face-time with the Lord.

 

And through the ages God at times has chosen to appear to people through dreams and visions. But even if He doesn’t bless us with experiences of that sort, we can see Him in other ways. I think of King David’s plea in Psalm 27:7-9, “Hear my voice when I call, O Lord, be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of You, ‘Seek His face!’ Your face, Lord, I will seek. Do not hide Your face from me, do not turn Your servant away in anger; You have been my helper.”

 

Indeed, we can see God through the Scriptures, which reveal everything we need to know about Him. Even if not everything we want to know. Professional writers talk in terms of “verbal imagery” – creating pictures with words. The Bible is filled with such artistry, not only with physical descriptions but also detailed accounts of the Lord’s character, His principles and truths, and ways He has worked in and through circumstances of every kind.

 

In Exodus 34:29 we read that after Moses’ request to see God’s glory, He descended the mountain unaware “that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord” (Exodus 34:29). Have you ever talked with someone who seemed to radiate the love of God; somehow you felt closer to the Lord when you were in their presence? I have. I believe that’s one way of seeing Him face to face.

 

Sometimes in reading the Bible the words seem so powerful, so vivid it’s almost as if He were speaking to us directly and audibly. That’s been my experience on more than a few occasions. And fervent prayers and petitions can draw us near to the Lord in ways beyond words.

 

The problem is we’re not always as serious about seeking God as we’d like to think. David’s words in Psalm 63:1 serve as a strong reminder to be a continual seeker and diligent learner. He wrote, “O God, You are my God, earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You, my body longs for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

 

Talk about creating a picture with words! This envisions a man alone in the middle of a desert, desperate with thirst, his body aching from the conditions of a “dry and weary land where there is no water.” Everyday life can feel like that, can’t it?

Would you like to ‘FaceTime’ with God? Open the Bible with the prayer, “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things from Your law” (Psalm 119:18). Feed on what He says to you through it, drink deeply, so that as the apostle Peter said, “times of refreshing may come from the Lord” (Acts 3:19). These can be just as powerful, just as fulfilling, as if you were sitting at the feet of Jesus Himself.