A Little Face Time

I love spending time with my iPhone.  I really do.  It might be the coolest thing ever created by man.  With it, I know where I am, where I'm going, and I can figure out how to get home from wherever that is.  I can check the weather in a distant city, manage my retirement fund, and simultaneously tune my guitar.  I am a lot smarter when I have my iPhone; I win Jeopardy! every time.  Sometime I just get lost in its coolness.  It's precious to me.  I call it "i-Precioussssss."  (Tolkien fans will get that one.)

iPhones have some neat features that help me stay connected with others:  email, talking, texting, and this cool app for video chatting called FaceTime.

The Bible tells of Moses having FaceTime conversations with God "as one who speaks to a friend."  Moses however, is not permitted to look directly into God's face.  God tells Moses that His Goodness and Glory are so great that if Moses were to look directly at Him he would die.  "No one man can look at God and live."

It appears that God delivers His "Concentrated Goodness" when he casts His Face upon you.  Here are two simple rules:

1) God's Face turned toward you = Good

"May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us."
      - Psalm 67: 1

2) God's Face turned away from you = Bad

"And I will certainly hide my face in that day because of all their wickedness in turning to other gods."
     - Deuteronomy 31:18

Again ...

God's Face turned toward you = Good

"Restore us, Lord God Almighty; make your face shine on us, that we may be saved."
     - Psalm 80:19

God's Face turned away from you = Bad

And in that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed.
     - Deuteronomy 31:17

As wondrous creatures, Divinely created in the image of God, we are called to reflect God's Goodness onto our broken world.  There is something innately good and holy about looking into the face of another person, one image-bearer of God into the face of another image-bearer of God.  But sometimes I spend a lot of time with my face turned downward, into my phone, or whatever thing that occupies my mind or consumes my attention.

With grateful appreciation that you might be reading this post from your mobile phone or tablet, I encourage you to make sure you are regularly looking up and around, casting your face upon another child of God who's life might benefit from your loving smile, your kind face, your encouraging nod, your hope-filled eyes.

Eye contactphoto credit: ejbSF via photopin cc