“Sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we cannot see.”
That line said by the Conductor in the movie The Polar Express, jumps out at me every time. I am someone who often sees parallels between movies and our spiritual lives.
We live in our natural world that we can physically see, hear and touch everyday. But one of the things this line reminds me of, is the spiritual world that we also live in everyday.
All the time.
We can’t get away from it.
And we experience both worlds.
Paul talks about it in Ephesians 6. Verse 12 says “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (I won’t say more about this just now, but it is a brief mention of the spiritual warfare we experience. I’m sure I’ll write about this in another post another day!)
These things in the spiritual world are real but they are not seen with our own eyes. God opens our eyes to all that is around.
A few weeks ago in our kids church, the leaders got the kids to close their eyes and they prayed “Lord, open our eyes to see what’s here”. The kids opened their eyes, had a look around. The leaders got them to shut their eyes again before asking if they saw angels and if so where were they? All the kids pointed in one of two directions, with some kids pointing both ways! Our kids saw angels in the room where they have church!
On one of my boys CD’s, Flabbergasted by Doug Horley, he tells a rather hilarious version of when the King of Aram was trying to find and capture the prophet Elisha (from 2 Kings 6:8-17). My two sons love this and crack up laughing at all the voices and sounds used to tell the story.
In this particular story, Elisha’s servant walks out the door one morning to find that the city of Dothan is completely surrounded by the armies of the King of Aram. He comes in and asks Elisha what they should do. Elisha’s response is “Don’t be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” In this funny rendition from Doug Horley, Elisha’s servant completely freaks out because he thinks there are only the two of them and two of them do not outnumber an entire army. Then in verse 17, Elisha then asks God to open his servant’s eyes so that he may see. The servant’s spiritual eyes are then opened and he saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire.
What situation are you in where you don’t understand and can’t see what’s going on? I’d encourage you to ask God to ‘open your eyes’ so you can see/understand what’s happening or even to see who/what surrounds us.
The Shepherd's Daughter 