Show Me Your Face, Lord

A funny thing happened on the way to my ’50s… I suddenly realized that I didn’t really know God.

Don’t get me wrong. I’d certainly experienced Him, or at least, what I thought was Him. I’d seen His miracles, I’d received His answers to prayer, been amazed at His jaw-dropping healings and interventions. I’d received ‘words of knowledge’ from Him (and even sometimes given them), seen Him save sinners, and deliver from demons. I had been keenly aware of His goodness, the anointing of His peace, and His numinous Presence. I could go on and on, but the point is, I became more unsettled and dissatisfied with what I came to feel were really manifestations of symbols of Him. As wonderful as all these things were, it wasn’t Him. I knew about Him, about what He could, might and probably would or would not do, but like Moses and David and countless millions before me, I wanted to see Him, be with Him, talk to Him, and, like Job, get direct answers! I wanted to know Him, up-close and personal. I wasn’t satisfied with this long-distance relationship. Psalm 27:4 became my mantra:

One thing I ask from the LORD,

This only do I seek:

That I may dwell in the house of the Lord

All the days of my life,

To gaze on the beauty of the LORD

And to seek him in his temple.

One thing I ask of You, Lord…. Would it really be so difficult, Lord, to answer my one request to see your face?

I had just assumed that God would answer by taking me on a happy excursion through green pastures and blue skies, and that any rain (God forbid!) would be light and refreshing and taste like lemonade. Little did I then realise that the answer to my rather flippant question was, “Yes, indeed, you will face many difficult times ahead!”

In the meantime, my questions to those ‘in the know’ drew the usual advice. “Read a Bible with a good concordance.” “Pray more.” “Try journaling.” “Listen to more worship music.” “Get more involved with ministry.” I tried all these things, and am truly thankful that they have seen me take major strides in my journey. But I felt that God was still being somewhat evasive, even though I understood deep in my heart, and from Scripture itself, that God really does want us to seek His face.

Lou Holtz, a famous American football coach once observed, “God looks after children, animals and idiots.” God, obviously a football fan, had evidently begun to feel for my plight as an idiot, and eventually and strategically placed a book in my path, which I successfully managed to overlook for years. But I finally picked up Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of the Discipline. The genie was out of the bottle and I was naturally led to Richard Foster’s Streams of Living Water. Scales which had covered 50% of my already limited spiritual insight began to fall from my eyes, and the more I read about the spiritual disciplines, and about practices of other Christian traditions, the more excited I became at the prospect of inching upward out of my ‘miry clay,’ which until then, seemed to have collided with, and was solidly welded against the proverbial glass ceiling. After trialing new and exciting disciplines, like journaling, silence, fasting, lectio divina and the daily Examen, and reading the lives of great ‘saints’ (both Protestant and Catholic), I began to sense that there might be, if not God Himself in full splendid regalia, at least a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel to guide me forward on my quest.

The reason I’m writing this is because I have come across fellow pilgrims on a similar quest to go deeper with God. So, I’ve written something of what I have discovered on my own journey, about God, prayer, the wilderness and His grace, and how they intertwine according to His plan for our journey. As the psalmist says, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord directs their steps.” (Proverbs 16:9) Not everyone’s journey is the same, but I believe each journey contains these major ingredients in varying quantities - God’s face, His grace, wilderness and prayer - as determined by God, and according to the outcome that God desires. I have also included excerpts from my prayers and journals, both as an encouragement and perhaps as something of a resource, because, if readers are anything like me, they will find God speaking to them in a myriad of ways, which include scripture, prayers, art, music and poetry, and of course, his creatures and his creation in general.

The story of the bible is the story of a journey. Travelers do not all take the same route, but the sign-posts and spiritual guides they have used are often similar. Pathways through deserts are hard to find and it is useful to have some knowledge of how others have found their way. (Brian Hawker. Spiritual Pathways: Guide-Posts For An Inner Journey. Basingstoke: Marshall Pickering, 1987).

“Come,” my heart says, “Seek His face!

Your face, Lord, do I seek,

Do not hide your face from me…….

I believe that I shall see the

goodness of the LORD

In the land of the living.

Wait for the LORD;

Be strong, and let your heart

Take courage;

Wait for the Lord!

(Psalm 27:8-9, 13-14)