Why does GOD seem HIDDEN?

Why does God seem hidden? Often times we think about God if we think about him at all as if he lives in some spiritual realm up in the sky and we live on Earth in this Physical Realm down here. Think of it like a two-story house where God lives upstairs he's up there doing God things and we live downstairs we're in this Physical Realm he's in the spiritual realm. But what if it was more like a one-story house where God actually lived with us like a roommate so to speak, where we expected to encounter Him throughout the day? Or we expected to at least see the evidence of his creation because he left a plate out or whatever it may be?

So what if:

You lived your life as if you came expectant to encounter God?

You came expecting to see the evidence of his work throughout your day?

Throughout your daily interactions with different people?

Through the smile of a stranger?

Through the kindness of a loved one?

Through the sunlight touching your skin?

Through that feeling in your lungs where they're burning because you exercise so hard?

These are all gifts of grace. These momentary glimpses, these Transcendent moments of joy and peace are all a gift of Grace from God. See God's beautiful handiwork is all around us if we have the eyes to see it. When is the last time you stopped and perceived the beauty around you.

The late great Dallas Willard said beauty is goodness made manifest to the senses. When We Touch see smell and hear the beauty all around us we are actually experiencing God's goodness. Where are you encountering beauty in your daily life? Have you taken a moment to focus and be present to awe and wonder? Did you know experiencing awe and wonder is beneficial to your health and well-being and God is the creator of this awe so don't let these moments pass you by and we have to live our lives expecting to have those encounters with God expecting to see the evidence of his existence and his movement in our lives but oftentimes what happens is we're blinded to the activity of God because our attention and our focus is on so many other things so if our attention and focus is thinking about this or looking at that you're not going to see what God is doing in your peripheral vision or in the background. It's kind of like a play where all of a sudden you're focused on one thing and the whole background shifted and you're like How did that happen? Well it happened because you were focused on one part of the stage and in the background other people were doing other things. That's kind of like how God works. He's moving but our focus is over here. So what if you started to try to make yourself be more attentive and focused on how God is moving throughout your day? So try to live your life, try to live tomorrow or today with this expectance of encounter with God where you move from just believing in God to actually encountering God and Experiencing God. It's we now don't just believe something but we look for ways to experience God through our reality.

Think of the famous prayer from Saint Patrick: he says:

Christ with me

Christ before me

Christ behind me

Christ Within me

Christ beneath me

Christ above me

Christ to the right of me

Christ to the left of me

Christ in my lying

Christ in my sitting

Christ in my rising

Christ in the heart of all who think of me

Christ on the tongue of all who speak to me

Christ in the eye of all who see me

Christ in the ear of all who hear me.

God gives us A New Perspective. New eyes to see a new perception of the spiritual reality encountering our physical reality where upstairs is no longer upstairs. It is a one-story Universe now where we and God interact on a daily basis where we start to expect encounters with him because he lives with us he's present all around us. It's not the spiritual realm up there and the Physical Realm down here. They both are overlapping and interlocking. God is here, God is in our midst, God is moving in your life. Do you have the eyes to see?

So think about God in new ways. Perceive God in new ways. Think about him throughout your day. Try to see where is God working. How is he moving where am I seeing the evidence of his existence? But also where am I seeing these moments of grace: these gifts that are from him these are all moments where God is saying:

"I'm here I'm present in your life. Do you see me?" The problem is not his existence, the problem is do you see him? Are you focused and are you attentive? Are you aware of how he is moving? Are you so focused on one part of the stage that you can't see what he's doing in the background?