Listen

Paul stood up in the middle of the council on Mars Hill and said, “People of Athens, I see that you are very religious in every way. As I was walking through town and carefully observing your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: ‘To an unknown God.’ What you worship as unknown, I now proclaim to you. God, who made the world and everything in it, is Lord of heaven and earth. He doesn’t live in temples made with human hands.”

Acts 17:22-24

Think

Paul understood that the religions of his time had many gods. There were gods for love, gods for agriculture, gods for fertility, gods for war, and more. Whatever you needed, there was a god for that. But a question persisted: “What if I still don’t have enough gods?”

Acts 17 says that the people had an altar for an “unknown god” just in case they missed one. In fact, Paul says, you did miss one! You missed the God who created the world and everything within it. The God who even chooses to live within humanity and not in idols made of hands.

While most of us today don’t worship idols like those, we have our own “idols” that get in the way of God. Our possessions, attentions, and aspirations too often turn our eyes away from God. It’s not so much that we are intentionally looking away from God as much as it is simply forgetting or not paying attention.

What keeps you from seeing God?

Kyle Caudle

Pray

Creator God, let me look to you and what you have done. Turn my eyes from the lesser things that distract me from your love. Fix my attention to your presence, you who are around me even when I do not see it. Amen.

Go

Go and chase the love that has called you,

Go and seek the truth that has found you,

Go and rest in the peace that grounds you,

Recognizing God is with you wherever you may go.

Amen.