The Secret of Being Able to See and Hear God

It is my understanding that there are a great many people who want ‘proof’ that God exists before they will deign to believe in Him. I am here to tell them that God has no more need to “prove His existence” than any of us have need to prove our own existence to one another. There is no need for me to prove my existence because I am here. I live … I breathe … I think … I leave evidence of my passing with every step I take. In other words – I am alive. There are documents and official records stored in a multitude of places with my legal name on them. Anyone that wanted to know more about me could look up my name wherever public records are stored, and find out what kind of houses I had purchased. If they had access to credit card records, they would know what kind of cars I have owned, the kinds of clothes I wear, and where I do most of my grocery shopping and eating out. If they had access to school records, they would know what classes I took in high school and at college. My medical records would give an indication of my general health.

In fact, you could type my legal name … or even my nick name … in just about any web browser, and my name pops up all over the place. You will also find the names of other people that are associated with my name, and you can ask THEM to tell you all about me.

Even better, since I AM alive, you can call me on the phone, or drop me an email, or send me a letter, and ask me to tell you more about myself than what is contained in public records, or from hearsay by my friends and enemies. You would be able to sit with me over a cup of coffee or tea, and we could reason together about any subject you cared to discuss.

I know it is even possible to have a relationship with another person and never lay eyes on him even once. Back a few years ago, I worked for a large company that had overseas distributors, and I got quite friendly with a fellow that only communicated with me by email. This was the only method we had of expediently keeping in touch because he lived on the other side of the planet, and he slept during my waking hours.

I even know that it is possible to have strong feelings about people that we had never met personally. Ever hear a certain song, and feel as if you and the singer were exactly alike in how he expressed his sentiments? Ever read a book, and feel as if you and the author would be dear friends should you ever meet? Ever find yourself joining a fan club or liking a particular Facebook page because you could not get enough of your favorite singer, or writer, or playwright, or sports figure, or comedian, and that your greatest wish was to meet that person ‘in the flesh’ and shake his hand? Ever put on a tee-shirt with your favorite sports team emblazoned across the front because you thought your team was ‘the bomb?’

We all understand what it means to ‘know’ about other people, and believe in their existence, and even affiliate ourselves with other people’s dreams and ideals and aspirations so tightly that they become OUR dreams and ideals … we even quote their words, or take on the attributes of people that are long dead, people like Plato, or Aristotle, or Thomas Jefferson or Confucius. Why? Because they left words behind for us to read. Other people wrote words about them, or about their experiences having lived with them. We read those words, we examine how we feel as the meanings of their words sink into our consciences, and we believe in their existence. At no point whatsoever is it necessary for anyone to rise up to sneeringly ask ‘yeah, but can you PROVE they actually existed?’ There is no need because the evidence is right in front of the eyes of anyone that cares enough to look for it. And they would not even look if they did not already believe such a person MIGHT after all exist, for who in their right mind would take the time to write something down as factual and true if it was indeed all just a huge fabrication? Even fiction writers reveal their own existence thru the plots in the stories about the people they do ‘make up’ in their imaginations, because their stories are based on real events that had happened to real people at some point in history.

Which brings me back to God. He does not need to ‘prove’ His existence to me because I have sought evidence of His existence, and found enough evidence to satisfy me that He is not some figment of someone elses imagination. I found evidence of Him having spoken to men and women in times past, who had taken the time to write down what He had said to them so that others would be able to ‘hear’ those words down thru the ages. Words of promise and of hope, of justice and mercy, of salvation and damnation. Words that encourage us to sit down with Him over a cup of coffee or tea and DISCUSS with Him those things He had written down.

“Impossible!” you say? Why is it impossible? God is every bit as much alive right now as you and I are. It is possible for us to speak to Him about anything at all, and He does give answers to those that are sincere in their desire to know more about Him. I know this to be true, because I have taken the time to ask Him a great many questions, and I have received a great many answers. It is not even necessary for me to see Him with my human eyes because I have been able to ‘see’ Him with the eyes of my mind, to understand His words with the ‘eyes’ of my intellect, and I KNOW He is every bit as real as any other person that takes the time to write down any words at all. I am able to know God with all the same assurance I have when I say I know that the sun provides warmth and light to our planet, or anything else that has been ‘proven’ by scientific or philosophic method.

I know He exists because He made specific promises to me in His word that He has already kept faithfully, and thus I am able to trust Him to bring everything He says about Himself to pass, both for His glory and my personal good. He does not have to prove Himself to anyone because He IS ALIVE right now, and willing to sit down and reason together with anyone that truly wants to hear His voice.

By the way … He never reveals Himself to scoffers. He is saving that particular pleasure for the final day, when He will come again with great power and glory, and at which time every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord God Almighty. Until that day comes, He is already revealed in the written word which many people call ‘the Bible,’ and you can see evidence of His handiwork in all aspects of creation, as well as in the lives of those who had already taken the time to take Him up on His promises, and have already begun speaking to Him and living according to His laws.

The key, the secret, as it were, of being able to SEE God, and HEAR His voice is the simple act of sincerely wanting Him to reveal Himself as He is meant to be seen and heard. If all you have about God is some arbitrary image of what you THINK He looks like, and He fails to appear to you according to your own imagination, that is not proof that He does not exist. It is just proof of your own unwillingness to believe.

God does not appear to the haughty or the proud, to the vain and to the wicked. He reveals Himself to the lowly, to the sorrowful and to the humble folks who know in their hearts that they are nothing without Him. People that want to know Him also embrace the truth, and they value wisdom, and self-control, and they are hungry to be seen as righteous and honorable people. They will only achieve comfort for their sorrow and an outlet for their hunger by going to God and asking Him into their hearts and minds. When they have done this, they will be given a new set of eyes with which to see Him more clearly … and suddenly they will see evidence that He has been surrounding them with His presence all along … they had but to want to have the eyes to see Him and the ears to hear Him.

Whenever another person does me the honor and the privilege of granting me a glimpse of his or her personal world view, it is the depth and the breadth of those areas in which his viewpoint and mine overlap that determine whether or not it is desirable to try to develop a relationship with that other person on increasingly more intimate terms. It takes some doing on our parts to establish a world view – we must travel our own paths of learning, and experience our own struggles of trying to understand all the things around us, both physical and spiritual; when we are satisfied that we know enough, and that we know for sure that we know for sure, we develop those principles which form the foundation upon which we build the entire rest of our lives. All this ‘doing’ and ‘struggling’ causes us to think, and when we think, lines and furrows form in our brain, and it is in these lines and furrows where we store the memories of our efforts. It is the formulation of these memories which give us, for perpetuity, the ability to stand firm on our principles, and which allow us a measure of consistency in our behavior towards others. Being able to predict the likely behavior of others is the sole basis on which we are able to form acquaintances, friendships, families, communities, and all other kinds of relationships with each other.

So, when I am given a glimpse of another person’s world view, and it turns out that our outlooks are similar, it is no real stretch of the imagination for me to believe that this other person has that world view simply because he or she had experienced many of the same, or very closely related, struggles I had. I don’t know about everyone else, but when I find a like minded individual on this planet, I experience a great satisfaction in my soul, and I find that my heart and my soul is drawn to this other person the way a moth is drawn to a flame. It is not necessary for me to actually see this other person’s body with my eyes, or touch them with my hands for him or her to be ‘real’ to me … the testimony of their words is enough, whether spoken or written, to begin the journey of a closer association, or relationship if you were, with that other person.

Or as it says in the Bible “ 34… for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart brings forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. 36 But I [Jesus] say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. 37 For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned.” Matthew 12:34-37 KJV 2000

I, for one, am not personally drawn towards a person who, after I have privileged him with a glimpse of my world view, should utter words of ridicule and condescension. I was raised to believe that if one did not have anything uplifting, edifying, or instructive to add to the conversation, one should keep one’s opinions to one’s self, and further, that I am under no compulsion whatsoever to either acknowledge or try to refute the person who should choose to speak anyway. It is enough to just let them have their say, and then politely ignore them from that point on.

God has commanded His children to be prepared to give an answer to anyone that asks about why we believe what we believe … but we are never commanded to argue with those whose only goal is to make a mockery of our testimony, and who take pleasure in scoffing at those things which their hearts and minds have never struggled to understand.

Discussions are between two or more people that are interested in the same topic, and whose desire is to enrich each others knowledge by comparing and contrasting their own experiences in order that the knowledge on that topic should increase. I started this thread in order to explain what it takes to see and hear God, and anyone that wants to add to what I said, or ask me questions so I can clarify for them what I said for their better understanding, or that wants to show me within the context of my own words in what areas my logic may be off track, are all welcome to make their comments to me, and are the kind of replies in which I would be eager to respond.

Further, this is also a website allegedly devoted to the propagation of new ideas, or of expounding on old ideas in a fresh way in order to stimulate intellectual growth. I had gotten the idea that the administrator of this website had stimulating conversations in mind, and not the counterproductive and futile attempts to repeatedly clarify one's position to someone whose only goal is to mock and deride the writer by posting derogatory and dismissive comments under the guise of a 'public debate.'

Finally, I did not post my thread under the tab "Atheism & Agnosticism," "Alternative Beliefs" or "Religion & Humanity;" I posted under "Christianity." If a reader has any objections to what Christians have to say about their own faith, then they are welcome to avoid this tab altogether and stick to venting their spleens in their own tabs. At the very least, have the courtesy to keep your opinions to yourself unless you have something to say that is relevant to the topic, or is couched in a fashion that is intended to enlighten the writer, and not badger them with insults.

Your version of god is blasphemous.
Be careful were you tread god is far from the human you imagine. You humanise god and belittle the notion of a deity.

You say you believe in god because people believe in other written about characters from history. Prity poor foundation for a belief system.

Its great to believe in god but poor to sin with scripture.

I mean no offence to you or your belief system just giving an incite of my own.

Not sure at all about what was blasphemous about my post. God is a person, albeit a Divine Person, a Creative Person, and His title happens to be Almighty God.

Further, by the grace that He has extended towards humanity thru the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, our faith and dependence upon that grace makes those of us that believe brothers and sisters to Jesus, and Co-heirs of the Kingdom of God. In the words of Jesus Himself, when we pray, we are to address God as "our Father ..." in fact, He tells us to call God ABBA Father, which translates into "Daddy." Such terms of endearment indicate that one is able to have a personal relationship with God in exactly the same terms as we have relationships with our children, our parents, and with each other.

There are many folks that deny the existence of God altogether. It was my intent to show that in the exact same means by which we are able to know and believe in the existence of other humans, both alive today and those long dead, based solely upon the evidence that they had left behind written documents about themselves, or about their experiences with said other people, God has also left evidence of His own existence within the contents of the Bible ...

God says that His name is I AM ... and the Bible says that He was, He is, and will continue to be for all eternity. I have read the words of Scripture for myself, and tested their veracity ... guess what? They all came true, just as He said they would. I have met other people that also believe in God, who have faith in Jesus Christ, and now think about God in terms of Him being their Father, their "daddy" ... And since God is eternal, that means He is a LIVING person, and capable of being found, seen and heard.

Unfortunately, in order to have this kind of personal relationship with God, one must repent of their own rebelliousness, and submit wholeheartedly to God's authority. One must WANT to see and hear God, and that was the whole gist of my thread.

That He is omnipotent, omnipresent and all powerful goes without saying ... after all, He IS God. The important thing to remember is this: God desires to have us live with Him forever, and He bent heaven and earth to provide the means for us to be acceptable in His presence. He says He loves us with an eternal love, but in order to avail ourselves of that love, we must be willing to align ourselves with all of His Holy ways, and abide by His laws.

We may be 'merely human.' but the Bible states that we had been created in the very image of God. In other words, He used Himself as the blueprint on which to form our shapes, our emotions and our ability to think. On what other terms would we be able to know anything at all about God if we were not able to look at ourselves and compare God to how we reason things out within ourselves as the beginning point?

I take great comfort in knowing that God is every bit as eager and willing to engage with me, and along many of the same terms, as we humans are eager and willing to engage with each other. If such sentiments are blasphemous to you, then it is possible you are reading a much different Bible than I am.

Oh my, what a wonderful reply to someone so young (we were young once, right?) who jumps in with both feet and fists flying lol. I knew everything when I was young too until years later the only sure thing I knew was that I really didn`t know much at all. Does true wisdom only come with the passing of the years? I wonder...... Please read my post (Religious Experience saved my life) Algernon.