Seeing The Unseen

We don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

2 Corinthians 4:18

Our young son had received all the “big guns” of asthma treatment—oxygen, steroid injections, antibiotics, and everything else the specialist could think of—but his condition worsened steadily. Fear threatened to completely overwhelm me.

I called my neighbor Elaine. When I asked her to pray for our son, she prayed that in the midst of the terrifying circumstances, God would open my spiritual eyes to see the unseen. What could she mean and what does that have to do with my son’s medical condition? I wondered.

A little while later, my husband insisted I go home, because I was only making our son more nervous. But when I went outside and tried to find the car, it was pouring rain. I couldn’t see and went back into the hospital. That was when I saw the sign: “Chapel.”

I was drawn to a large, white Bible at the front. As I read the words on the open page, I realized I’d been hoping in the doctors to save our son’s life and that I needed to release him to the God who had created him. For me as a mother, letting go of a critically ill child was almost impossible. As the lights flickered and thunder boomed, I had a new glimpse of God’s grace: The Creator of the whole universe was in complete control of the thunderstorm and all things, yet I hadn’t trusted him with my son’s life.

In this look into the unseen, I sensed God’s Spirit saying, “Hope in me; trust his life to me totally.” As I knelt before the Lord, a peace I’d never experienced swept through me, and I knew my son was safe and cared for.

Lord, forgive us when we cling to who and what is dearest to us. Grant us faith to believe in your faithfulness and help us to see the unseen things that will last forever so that we might release all those we love into your loving hands. Amen.

Prayer, even prayer for what God desires, releases power by the operation of a deep spiritual law; and to offer up what one loves may release still more.

Sheldon Vanauken(1914–1996), American author and editor