Since God Wants Me to Believe in Him, Why Doesn’t He Just Appear to Me?

As a new believer in Christ at age sixteen, I recall one night going outside my home in Peoria, Illinois, and crying out to God to show Himself to me to confirm that what I believed about Him was true. “Just appear to me!” I begged of God.

At this early stage of my newfound faith, I had not yet learned of places in Scripture that reference our invisible God. Paul states to Timothy that God is our King, eternal and immortal, and “invisible” (1 Timothy 1:17). Later in the epistle, he expressed that God “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see” (1 Timothy 6:16). In the Old Testament, God revealed to Moses, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!” (Exodus 33:20).

Seeing Is Not Believing

Still, later, I realized the tension in which many of us find ourselves. We wish to tell God, “I must see to believe.” Yet, we hear what Jesus said in John 20:29, “Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.” Earlier, He lovingly rebuked those who would only believe if they could see: “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe” (John 4:48). Understandably, we sometimes feel as though we are living out our Christian faith between a rock and a hard place.

Was Jesus too harsh in these passages from John’s Gospel? No. Even when people did see, they did not believe. The Israelites saw the parting of the Red Sea, manna from heaven, a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. Yet, they grumbled and rebelled and wanted to return to Egypt. Despite all the signs and wonders, they disobeyed and distrusted. 

In the New Testament, when Jesus healed on the Sabbath, like the miracle of restoring a man’s withered hand, the Pharisees refused to believe or express gratitude and plotted to kill Jesus.

What is it about some of us that we would grow irreverent even after seeing the undebatable hand of God?

Clearly, seeing is not a guarantee of believing. 

God Calls Us to Walk by Faith, Not by Sight

In God’s kingdom, the general principle is found in 2 Corinthians 5:7: “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” 

That verse raises the question: If we cannot see God, how do we increase our faith to trust and follow Him?

God designed the world to “see” Him through four good and holy means. When we respond to these four, we become a person of faith. Others could very well say about us that we “endured, as seeing Him who is unseen” (Hebrews 11:27).

He ordained these four glorious and sufficient ways as most important to Himself to best enable our trust and obedience. These four either excite or incite people. 

1. In the Creation, we “see” His power, wisdom, and creativity (referred to as general revelation).

We read in Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

Though many unbelievers in the scientific community and elsewhere readily and intellectually scoff at the notion that the world reveals God’s invisible attributes, most common folks do not reject this idea. Though they cannot argue against the intellectual who claims everything we see resulted in an accidental chemical reaction and then formed a planet we call earth over hundreds of millions of years, they simply do not buy into this theory. 

The earth appears to be perfectly fine tuned to support life and human beings. This unique, orderly, and complex environment might be due to a random happening over time, per the atheist’s theory, but that does not echo anyone’s experience. Though unbelievers would argue their position is based on the best science, when common folks learn of the world’s phenomena, they “see” God in the creation. 

For example, in a glorious exchange, we exhale carbon dioxide (CO₂), and plants, through photosynthesis, produce oxygen (O₂). While we inhale oxygen, the plants absorb the carbon dioxide we exhale in a near-perfect balance that sustains life. 

As well, the detailed complexity of the coding in our DNA is nothing short of a blueprint. Laity sees it as a deliberate design.

Many people humble themselves in awe over the myriad of new findings daily. Common folks, and some intellectuals, see His sovereignty, power, wisdom, creativity, goodness, and purpose. Others “see” none of these things. I think of our Lord’s words: “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants” (Matthew 11:25).

2. In the Conscience, we “see” His truth, righteousness, and justice (referred to as the moral law within).

We read in Romans 1:19, “that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.” We also read in Romans 2:15, “they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.”

The Bible states that we know things about God’s person from the moral law within. In the conscience, God makes this law evident. We accuse ourselves of doing wrong or defend ourselves when doing what is right based on this innate moral law.

As for this standard, C. S. Lewis wrote in his classic book Mere Christianity, “Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five.” He continued, “Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it.” 

Within us is a moral law of right and wrong. Even children know what is loving, fair, good, and noble. One has to be conditioned by culture to suppress the truth in unrighteousness. 

We must ask ourselves: Where does this innate moral law come from? Many realize, “God planted that in me.” And when they take that a step farther, they realize it is because this is who He is. They know what is true because He is the truth. This innate sense of truth, righteousness, and justice points to God as One who is true, righteous, and just.

In Critique of Practical Reason, Kant said, “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence . . . the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” To Kant, the moral law within him prompted reverence.

Here’s what I find curious and intriguing. Had God appeared to me that night in Peoria, His appearance to me should have driven me to my knees as I beheld His holiness, righteousness, goodness, power, and all-knowing. His appearance should have caused me to have an understanding of who He is. Seeing His divine attributes, I should have been overwhelmingly motivated to trust and obey His person. But from what we learn in the Bible, the moral law within me—in my conscience—enables the same thing, or at least it should! 

Put it this way—if I do not respond to the moral law within by seeing His divine attributes, I won’t respond if He were to appear to me. I suspect God knows the results will be the same, so He sticks primarily to the moral law within. Yes, there are people and situations where angels and Jesus may appear, like Paul on the Damascus road. However, though this occurred with Paul, he never proposed that as a way of gaining a deeper faith. He never wrote, “Ask Jesus to appear to you as He did to me.” No, Paul wrote in Romans 1:19, “that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.”

3. In the Christ, we “see” His love, forgiveness, and redemption (His incarnation of attributes and morality).

We read in Colossians 1:15 about Jesus, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” Later Paul states in Colossians 2:9, “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.”

My world shifted significantly when a speaker asked two years into my faith, “Do you want to see God?” He repeated that question slowly several times. My sixteen-year-old self, returning to that moment in Peoria, said, “Yes!” The speaker then said, “Look at Jesus! God became man and dwelt among us! He is the image of the invisible God.” That hit me like a ton of bricks. He then commented, “Some demand of God to appear to them. But He already did, in the first century.” 

I realized, at one level, I was self-focused and arrogant. I requested God appear to me. But He already did, not just for me but all of humanity. As I reflect, I asked myself, “Who did I think I was, making the request, ‘Just appear to me’?” All of us need to align with several key scriptures. There was the “appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 1:10), this “grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people” (Titus 2:11), and “the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared” (Titus 3:4). It was the first century “when the fullness of the time came [and] God sent forth His Son” (Galatians 4:4).

Is there any better way to know who God is then by looking at Jesus in the Gospels? Paul wrote in Romans 10:17, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” The writer of Hebrews penned in Hebrews 12:2, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.”

Theologians refer to this as the centrality of Christ. When we look at Jesus in the Scriptures, we see that He is eternal and sovereign over all (Colossians 1:15-17) and He is the radiance of God’s glory and all-powerful (Hebrews 1:3). He spoke truth, served, went to the cross, forgives us, grants us eternal life, and prepares a place for us in heaven. The list goes on and on. 

When people come to me struggling with the reality of God, I typically ask them to read one of the Gospels daily for a month and mark down what they observe about Jesus. How odd but true that when people struggle with matters of faith, and they doubt, they tend to listen to the naysayers instead of equally hearing the words of Jesus and considering His person. Too often when people begin to doubt God about and His existence, they take their eyes off Jesus.

For me, I seek to return to the richness of the Scriptures, where we read:

• “I [Jesus] and the Father are one.” (John 10:30 NIV)
• “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:19 NIV)
• “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Matthew 11:27 NIV)

Want to see God? Look at Jesus.

‍4. In the Canon, we “see” His wisdom, holiness, mercy, power, and eternal purpose (special revelation in Scripture).

Scripture is ultimately about Jesus; therefore, Jesus best explains the Father to us. 

But beyond Jesus, we can learn even more about who God is with the words that define various attributes. Hundreds of verses are like these:

• “God is love.” (1 John 4:8 NIV)
• “Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.” (Psalm 147:5 NIV)
• “Great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:23) 
• “I the Lord do not change.” (Malachi 3:6)

As we compile these descriptions, we are comforted with the knowledge of who God is. The Bible is the source. 

Augustine of Hippo, in his early life, addressed his sensuality because of parties, women, and drinking. However, in the summer of AD 386, after hearing a child next door say, “Pick it up, read it,” he picked up a copy of Romans and at-random read Romans 13:13-14, which says, “Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (ESV). The Holy Spirit convicted him. “A light flooded my heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished away’” (Augustine, Confessions, 8:29).

God used this scripture to speak to Augustine’s heart about Him and His truth. As we read the Bible, God will reveal Himself to us. There are sixty-six books of the Bible, referred to as the canon of Scripture. Paul refers to the Old Testament as “inspired” Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16), and Peter referred to Paul’s writings as Scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16). When we approach the words of the prophets, apostle, and Christ as the Word of God, He will enable us to come to know Him.

When we read the Bible, we learn who God is. Recently, I attended the funeral of Norm Bell. In his nineties, they showed him at his desk early in the morning reading the Bible, a practice he lived and taught since his twenties. What hit me like a ton of bricks about that picture is that this was the day before he died. To the end, he read the Scriptures to learn who God is.

Conclusion

Since that night in Peoria, I have rejoiced that God has appeared to me, many times, and through four primary means. I have seen the unseen One. I have heard His inaudible voice. I have seen and heard Him in the Creation, the Conscience, the Christ, and the Canon. I accept that. Do you?