Moses prayed for it (Exodus 33) and David sang of it (Psalm 27): the saints of the faith yearn to see God’s face with a wholehearted, single-minded longing and full, embodied response (2 Samuel 6:14).
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.
Psalm 27:4
I think sometimes we rush by these passages without meditating on them, without placing ourselves in them to receive through our imaginations God’s renewal (Romans 12:2). Desiring someone’s face is incredibly intimate. It means you are squarely facing a person, exposed, not turned ready with the brunt of your shoulder to bear a blow, not ready to run with sideways feet, not hiding behind slants and angles and presenting the part of yourself you like best to the camera. It means the full attention of your true and honest self, to the exclusion of everything around you. And most of all, it means closeness. To be reflected in someone’s eyes means the mutuality of being close enough to see them see you, how they see you. How you might not see yourself, as dearly loved.
“They turned their backs to me and not their faces; though I taught them again and again, they would not listen or respond to discipline.”
Jeremiah 32:33
I was caught off guard by this verse in Jeremiah, that it captures walking away from God as no longer being face to face. I wondered what we imagine Jesus’ expression is when He speaks His core message (“Repent!”). I wonder what emotion we hear in Father’s voice when He speaks it. Do we hear it as from a stern schoolmaster prodding an unruly pupil back in line, or do we receive it as a Lover longing for a glimpse of His Beloved’s face?
You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride;
you have stolen my heart
with one glance of your eyes,
with one jewel of your necklace.
Song of Songs 4:9
Father God’s heartcry through the prophets is again and again, “Turn back!” Not just because the road away from Him leads to destruction, but because He wants to see our faces, because the road toward Him leads to abundant life, intimacy with Him (John 10:10, 17:3). So often we make Scripture about us. We like to profess our loyalty to Jesus as our ‘one thing’. But to see you face to face and for you to be with Him where He is the one thing Jesus wants (John 17:24). And Father God so loved you that He gave His ‘one thing’, His one and only Son, that you might have life through Him (John 3:16). What a devoted, faithful love! That is the basis of our turning and our confidence and our love (1 John 4:10,19).
What about you might you change if you received this reversal? How might you approach God differently?
Fire and Whisper 