“Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!” Your face, LORD, do I seek. – Psalm 27:8
Throughout the pandemic Zoom and other video conferencing service have been a great help. In December of 2019 Zoom had 10 million daily meeting participants. Today, Zoom has 300 million daily meeting participants. That’s an increase of 2900%.
We want to see each other. We feel more connected to someone when we can see them. This is, at least partly, due to the fact that so much of our communication is non-verbal. We need to see each other. Yet, as we learned throughout the course of the pandemic, our hearts long to be face-to-face without a screen in between.
In a similar way the Psalmist longs to see God’s face. The poetry of seeking God’s face speaks of a desire to be close with God; to have all barriers cast aside. The psalmist is not content to know about God, but wants to know God. Learning about God is good but it is not the same as actually being with God. For me, it feels like the difference between meeting with someone over Zoom instead of being with them in person.
In Colossians we read that “Christ is the image of the invisible God…” We look to Christ to get a glimpse of the face of God. We pray Jesus’ prayer to understand the heart of God. And we do things that Christ did in order that others might see the love of God alive and thriving in our world.