Seen and Unseen

 July 29, 2021

“I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.” A few days ago, I wrote about what it means to believe in God as Father Almighty. I’ve been thinking about the next phrase, “Maker of heaven and earth.” There’s a lot to unpack here, but it’s the creation of things unseen that catches my attention tonight. It’s no stretch for me to believe in God as Creator of all that is around me. When I see the intricacy of the honeybee colony, the importance of “bee space,” the hexagonal shape of the honeycomb cell, the way the colony works together so much that it is the colony rather than the individual bee that is considered the organism, I have no problem believing in a Creator. My problem is believing this all came about as an accident of evolution.

The same goes for the hydraulic cycle, the variety of the birds that visit our feeders…the list goes on and on. But what about things invisible? One could make the argument that the Creed is referencing the invisible elements from which all things are made—molecules, atoms, and the like. I don’t believe this for a moment. I think the Creed is referencing the unseen world of angels and demons, principalities, powers, and the authorities Paul mentions in Ephesians 6.

I recently read of a saintly woman on her deathbed exclaiming, “I didn’t realize the other world is so close.” Yes, it is, and when I say I believe in heaven, I’m not speaking of the sky or outer space. I’m speaking about that other dimension of life that is more real than the one we can see and touch. It is our God who made the unseen realities of love, emotion, and faith that will endure long after my bees and birds return to the dust of the ground. I believe in the God who made everything, seen and unseen, and because I believe in him, I also believe that I am a steward, a caretaker of both this seen world and that which is seen only by faith.