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Can we really see God at work?

It’s a common question these days, especially in missional circles, and I suspect that you, like many others, want to see God at work—even long to—but the possibility often seems quite elusive. Can we really see God at work?

I believe we can, because I believe the Spirit is present and active in every moment everywhere, inviting us to see—but not necessarily where and how we expect. We often assume and expect that evidence of God at work is seen in the more: more people in the pews, more people involved in our outreach projects and programs, more conversions.

But God, it seems, chooses to be seen in God’s own ways, which are not necessarily confined to or contained by our expectations, assumptions, metrics, and perhaps delusions.

God contrarily is often at work outside our boundaries, borders, and bastions.

For example, God was at work in bad Babylon (Jer. 29) and nasty Nineveh (Jonah), in foreigners like Ruth, Cornelius, and an Ethiopian eunuch, a widow in Sidon, a leper of Syria, and even in a three-times-beaten donkey for Balaam’s sake (Num. 22:21-32)!

So the question might really be whether we are willing to see God at work in people and places beyond our bounded sets. What if we’re not seeing because we are not looking in the right places?

Jesus—God at work—was seen on the road, in the marketplaces and farmyards, at tax collectors’ tables, beside Samaritan wells, by shepherds’ fields and Bethsaida’s pools, in hungry people on hillsides, in fishless fishing boats late at night, and “on the other side.”

To see God at work might thus require that we get out more—and that we slow down in the places and among the people God has placed us so we can notice what the Spirit is up to right next door.

Here’s an excerpt from my poem “S-H-U-S-H”:

Slow to see or seeing slowly

Same words, big difference

Am I slow to see

God at work ‘round me?

Or am I slowing, for growing—

Eyes that begin noticing

Burning bushes, hearts burning

In the Presence, Love knowing.