Do we ignore the simple answer because it isn’t what we wanted it to be? How does our pride prevent us from having a real relationship with God?
John 14:9-11
8 Philip *said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus *said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. “
Again, Jesus is repeating a principle He laid out earlier. Jesus is the conduit to the Father. In order to have a relationship with God, we must believe in Jesus as the Christ. Too often we blind ourselves to the very thing we are looking for. All of us (yes, ALL of us) have a desire to be reunited with our creator. Maybe we have gotten to the point where we have stopped looking or have become disillusioned because we didn’t find exactly what we wanted to find; God didn’t fit in our little box. The Jews will experience their dislike for Jesus not fitting into their political agenda as we continue reading John.
In discovering more and more about the Triune God, we see here Jesus explaining His oneness with God the Father. He is telling Philip that it seems like he hasn’t been paying attention. I think this is true with a lot of us. I think back to when I was a kid and wore glasses. I lost them all the time. I would be tearing up my room looking for my glasses before school until I catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror, to find that they were on my face the whole time! This is how we can sometimes be in seeking a relationship with God. We are looking in all the wrong places, only to find that there is a simple answer and it is right in front of our face: believe that Jesus is the Son of the Living God. However, we get embarrassed or we feel like it isn’t what we expected. We have gotten caught up in the hunt for the glasses so we keep looking anyway, acting like we knew what we were doing. We don’t want to be ashamed or embarrassed by our past actions. Maybe we didn’t want it to be that easy. Maybe our mind tells us something different (I took my glasses off earlier, so they cannot possibly be on my face). We get caught up in all this junk and completely ignore the simple truth.
In verse 11, Jesus throws a different perspective at Philip, “if anything, believe the things you have seen with your own eyes as proof.” In my metaphor of looking for glasses, even if you don’t believe they are on your face, at least notice that you can see everything clearly that you are tearing apart to find them. Anyone who wears some sort of corrective lenses knows the difference between that fuzzy uncorrected vision and the crisp, clear, comforting corrected vision. Yet, because of our pride we ignore it anyway, especially if someone else is watching.
Here is the irony though. Someone tells us, “hey, they are on your face (this is the answer to what you have been looking for)” and what do we do? We turn away and keep looking for them! How ignorant are we? I know the feeling. I really struggle when someone gives me the answer before I can figure it out myself. It’s like I put in all this work to accomplish someone and then someone gives me a solution that 1) proves I was wrong and 2) nullifies all my hard work. The reality, however, is that whether or not we like the right answer, the answer is still right.
Are you searching? Have you been told the right answer yet ignore it because of pride? If you cannot find what you are looking for, why don’t you ask for some help?
