I was at the end of my writing yesterday when God said something to me. He said, that's why you can't see Me. Because you would judge Me based upon how I look. And He said I want you to know Me by My character. Wow what a revelation. Right?
How often do we look at what we see with our eyes and judge? How many times did you decide that you didn't like someone because of: how they looked to you? It might have been what they had on, or they may have had a look on their face you didn't understand, maybe it was that they seemed to have snubbed you.
As I am writing this God is showing me someone I judged just yesterday. A man digging through the trash. Normally I would give to someone in need, but he rubbed me the wrong way. He seemed angry and he was violent as he was throwing the trash covers off and on—and even kicking one of the trash cans.
Now, today I realize I was sent to help him. I wasn't listening to God apparently. He told me to do my errands I wasn't going to do until the next day. One of those errands was getting gas which is where the man was that was digging through the trash.
He scared me and so I wanted to just get out of there. Now thinking back I can see God sent me to love him. I can see now he was angry about his circumstances. I can discern now when he looked at me in that mean way he was telling me he hated himself and his life. He needed help but I just drove away without giving him what he needed. I wasn't listening. I drove away. Just like James said, when you see a brother poorly cald and in need and you walk away —you have no faith.
James 2: 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clad and lacks food for each day,16 And one of you says to him, Good-bye! Keep [yourself] warm and well fed, without giving him the necessities for the body, what good does that do? 17 So also faith, if it does not have works (deeds and actions of obedience to back it up), by itself is destitute of power (inoperative, dead). AMPC
I so wish I could do that over again and am sure God will give me another chance— and I will sure to be more attentive.
Thinking —is how we communicate with God, His thoughts when we hear Him is our image of who He is —and how He designed it to be. There is no visibility of who God is. We see Him only through thoughts, and can only see who He is by knowing His thoughts that identify His character.
When Jesus came He came in a body, but what would He look like all the time?
If we were made in His likeness how does that make Him look? Does He look just like you and I? What if He does, would we judge Him for that? What if He wore the wrong clothes and didn't cut His hair. What if He stood out on the street corner and waited for His offering?
Remember Mary? She was about to be stoned when Jesus got down on the ground with her and defended her. The crowd looked at her as dirty, but Jesus loved her. That is what God looks like, that is the picture of love, our knowing of who He is and what He looks like. He looks like love.
I should have known better, the man I was sent to last night was as angry and needed God but I judged him by his covering.
God's child —a man in whom God loves, and a man God sent me to , but I wasn't aware of God's feelings, only mine. I had me on my mind.
Another time, at least ten years ago, I was out for an early morning walk and saw a man digging in a dumpster. This man was equally as angry, and his stares scared me. But God asked me to tell the man that He loved him. I did and the man tried to scare me further with more looks, looks that I better leave or he would kill me. God said —say it again. I did but still the man was angry and told me to leave him alone. I wanted to so I did, my flesh got in the way, but what if I would have persisted? What if I wasn't so fleshy and had my mind more on what God wanted. But because of his covering I judged him. What he really needed was love but I only had me on my mind.