Let's face it...

            I don't know about you but when I get bored in the car and the radio is on I try to give faces to the voices I hear.  If it is a program I listen to regularly I see the same face again and again.  I give certain characteristics to someone with a deep voice and others to those who have a high voice or a lisp.  If the person sounds old I throw grey hair on their head.  It makes for good entertainment.  And it makes it easier to listen when you feel as though it is more of a conversation with a friend.  You feel as though you know the person better once you've seen their face.

            But when I see pictures of the people, guess what?  I'm never right.  Maybe the grey hair thing.  But I can never get the nose just right or the way their hair looks.  Just by the odds I might get the eyes.  But the point is this:  until you see that person you can't guess what they look like because they are unique. 

            And God is the same way.  We can't ever put a face on God.  No one has ever seen Him.  Well except the Son of course.  Try as we may, we will never know what He looks like until we are with Him.  Bummer.  But what characteristics would you give to the face of God?  Would you give Him a stern brow like a merciless judge.  Or would you give Him empathetic eyes, like those of and old man who has had to watch his son's wife die, being himself a widower.  I'm sure we'd do the grey hair thing with Him.  I mean come on.  The guy is older than time.

            How we pray to Him can depend greatly on that face we give Him in our minds.  We may feel distant and unworthy.  We may feel frightened or nervous if we see Him as vindictive and eager to pass judgment.  We must always remember that the face we picture must be the face of a Father who loves His children so much that he is willing to go to the grave in order to have them come home to Him.  It must be the face of an expectant Father who has a table prepared for a feast and can't wait to have you sit down.  It must be a loving, forgiving, gentle face.  A face that causes you to be at peace. 

            The Face of Life that helps you face this life, knowing the life you will face, in the end, or shall we say, the beginning.

SDG