He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. (Colossians 1:15)

So what do we do with a God we cannot see? Are we guilty of resorting to the God of the gaps as a way of explaining things that seem to have no scientific basis? We must beg the question, though, what would constitute evidentiary proof that God exists? What would convince us that we have seen God? If, for the sake of argument, we begin with the belief in the existence of God, and reason from there, the process is not really much different from beginning with the belief in the non-existence of God. One cannot simply begin with non-belief. Even the scientific method begins with a postulate and then sets about to prove or disprove the postulate. In other words, thinking about the ultimate existence of everything must begin with a belief of some kind.

If we begin with the belief in God, then it follows that the lack of empirical proof would be expected, because the creator would be very difficult to perceive and understand. Younger cosmologists who hold to the Big Bang theory of the beginning of the universe are finally addressing the question of where that original Big Bang (called the singularity event) came from. Some are postulating a “multiverse,” out of which our present universe originated. But that solves nothing; it simply moves the problem of origins farther back.

But if we begin with God, think in spatial proportions for a minute. He must be larger than that which He created. We live on planet earth, which is part of a solar system circulating around an average star. As a recent Scientific American journal article explains, our sun is one of some 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. “Our galaxy is but one of an estimated several hundred billion structures in the observable universe” (Fall 2017). So we have a case far more extreme than an ant trying to see an elephant. All he sees is a long snake, flappy flesh, thick tree trunks, a rope or a big wall – depending on where on the elephant he stands. But he doesn’t know that he is seeing an elephant.

Our inability to “see” God doesn’t mean He does not exist. We may be seeing Him and not realizing it. In fact, Christians have long maintained that the evidence is there, when pieced together. When we overlay what we do physically see and perceive with the belief in God, we see a creation that wonderfully reflects God’s glory. And we praise Him as “the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen” (1 Tim 6:15–16).

Lord, I see You in the ebb and flow of my life, everywhere I turn. Amen.