Turning the Face

The Blessing

By William M. Self, Sr.

 

“It may be that out of all the prayers that are ever spoken

The most common one – the quietest one,

The one that we least acknowledge making –

Is simply this:

Don’t look at me, God” John Ortberg

What don’t you want Him to see?

Turning the Face

In John Ortberg’s book, “God Is Closer Than You Think”

he gives an illustration he calls… SPIRITUAL HIDING

Sometimes we don’t have much of a

sense for God’s presence in our lives,

but there’s no mystery to it at all.

The truth is that our desire for God

can be pretty selective.

Sometimes we don’t want God to be around.

Dallas Willard writes about a two-and-a-half-year-old

girl in the backyard who one day discovered the secret

to making mud (which she called “warm chocolate”).

Her grandmother had been reading and was facing away

from the action, but after cleaning up what was to her a mess,

 she told little Larissa not to make any more chocolate and

turned her chair around so as to be facing her granddaughter.

The little girl soon resumed her “warm chocolate” routine,

with one request posed as sweetly as a two-and-a-half-year-

old can make it: “Don’t look at me, Nana. Okay?”

Nana (being a little codependent) of course agreed.

Larissa continued to manufacture warm chocolate.

Three times she said, as she continued her work’

 “Don’t look at me, Nana. Okay?” Than Willard writes,

Thus the tender soul of a little child shows us how

necessary it is to us that we be unobserved in our wrong.”

   

 

Any time we choose to do wrong or to withhold

doing right, we choose hiddenness as well.

It may be that out of all the prayers that are ever spoken…

The most common one – the quietest one,

the one that we least acknowledge making

– is simply this:

Don’t look at me, God

It was the first prayer spoken after the fall.

God came to walk in the garden,

to be with the man and the woman,

and called, “Where are you?”

“I heard you in the garden,

and I was afraid,…so I hid.”

 

Don’t look at me, God”.

The blessing of God comes when we

welcome God to look at everything we do.

We invite Him to see the good, the bad and the ugly.

We embrace His correction as well as His approval.

You cannot receive the fullness of the

priestly blessing unless you welcome…

“Lord make His face shine upon you”

Lord turn His face toward you” Numbers 6:25, 26

 

Scripture Reading

Numbers 6:22-27 NIV

22 The Lord said to Moses, 23 "Tell Aaron and his sons,

'This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:

24 "'"The Lord bless you

and keep you;

25 the Lord make his face shine upon you

and be gracious to you;

26 the Lord turn his face toward you

and give you peace." ' 

27 "So they will put my name on the Israelites,

and I will bless them."

2 Chronicles 30:9 NIV

He will not turn his face from you if you return to him.

2 Chronicles 16:9 NKJV "For The Eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him." Proverbs 15:3 NKJV "The Eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good." Proverbs 22:12 NIV "The Eyes of the Lord keep watch over knowledge,  but He frustrates the words of the unfaithful." 1 Peter 3:12 NKJV "For the Eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." Psalm 33:18 NIV The Eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, On those whose hope is in his unfailing love Psalm 34:15-16 NKJV "The Eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,  and His ears are open to their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth." Deuteronomy 21:9 NIV "So you will purge from yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the Eyes of the Lord." Genesis 47:25 NIV "May we find favor in the Eyes of the Lord.”