Perfect Clarity

God With Us
"What, then, is the God I worship? ... You are the most hidden from us and yet the most present among us, the most beautiful and yet the most strong, ever enduring; and yet we cannot comprehend you."
-St. Augustine
Isaiah 7:14
"All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means 'God is with us')." (NLT)

God With Us
When the virgin gave birth to this Son, Immanuel was at last present among us, yet in so many ways he was still hidden from us. Romans 11:33 says, "Oh, how great are God's riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!"
Have you ever wondered why God would want to live among us and even within us, when we cannot fully comprehend him?

If you've ever gone to live in a foreign country, you've known the temporary loneliness and frustration of living among people who can't fully understand you. In spite of the hardship, most likely you endured because you knew that one day you would eventually be fully understood.

1 Corinthians 13:12 promises a day when we will no longer see through imperfect eyes: "Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely."

Could it be that Immanuel—God With Us—is looking forward to that day just as much as we are, that day when we see him with perfect clarity and know him completely?