“Why doesn’t God just show himself?”

Here’s a story…

Growing up in the Filipino culture, I would hear adults share their stories of ‘aswangs’; a term for shape-shifting evil creatures such as vampires, ghouls and witches.

When I was a young child, I recall attending a family party and the host convinced everyone (adults and kids) to gather in their living room. With the lights turned off, we were asked to patiently await the appearance of a dwarf.

From then on, I made up my mind that supernatural beings were simply imagined folklore to scare young kids. However, I did develop a keen fascination with the supernatural and I’m entertained by films of of Dracula, werewolves, etc.

But there was an unseen, supernatural being I held a steadfast belief in from the start - God.

Growing up Catholic, I was repeatedly informed about the realness of God. I sung to her every Sunday at church, said my prayers before every meal and at bedtime.

When you hear something long enough, I’m sure you’ll start believing it too.

And I also learned that God is not visible. At least not to everyone.

I accepted it as part of God’s mystery and furthermore, God will only reveal itself when and if we make it to Heaven or only to those who have a certain faith or religion.

And sometimes, God will only reveal himself to specific people.

This suggested to me that the God is not only mysterious but selective.

Back then, that was my idea of faith - you just accept it and without question.

But I was curious one.

When something doesn’t make sense, I crave answers.

Over the years, I’ve observed how humanity has constructed its own image of God -

In movies, God is often portrayed as a supreme male supernatural being with a voice like Morgan Freeman immersed in a bright light.

And if we can entertain this further, God is adorned with a beard and muscles, seated upon a golden chariot, wielding a lightning bolt in one hand, and crowned with regal splendour.

One might imagine God as an energised giant eye or light who appears gentle but can bring wrath to those who disobey his orders.

I’m sure you have other notions of what God looks like.

So it seems that if God does reveal himself, humanity is expecting a majestic site of incredible proportions and complete unordinary.

After all, it’s God, right!

Now, I could be wrong about all of this but it seems to me that due to humanity’s constructed image of God…

We’ve decided that a grand image of her is not only expected but what’s acceptable.

And because life is filled with the everyday and ordinary, we’ve decided many things cannot be God.

Hence we’ve fallen under the illusion that God must be separate.

When we can’t see God, it means she isn’t ‘here’ and must be ‘over there’ somewhere.

So we look up to the Heavens…

Then when something ‘good’ happens to us, will we assume that God is with us (which means he’s not with anyone else at that time).

I’ve seen athletes who appear on TV and say they won because God was with them…suggesting that God wasn’t with the other team?

Once again, it’s perceiving a God who is separate, choosy and has certain preferences.

My understanding of God differs to all of this and as usual, take it or leave it.

Firstly, God is ‘all’ and omnipresent.

Hence, God cannot be somewhere where God is not.

There is no time or space that God has not touched.

Which means God has to be in everyone and in everything.

Since the Devil is described as the absence of God, then I consider the Devil to be in the same category as the aswangs - folklore.

There is no separation, all is connected.

This understanding has also helped me uncover a beautiful truth -

God is not hiding.

God is in the trees, the air, the animals, the light, the warmth, the cold, the joy, the sadness, the stranger next to me…

God reveals himself to all.

We can see, feel, hear, taste God and we do it all the time. We just don’t realise it because we’re expecting something else.

Others might brush it off as intuition or an epiphany.

Yes, God is both in the seen and unseen.

Here’s another interesting insight - everything that we’re experiencing as human beings cannot be experienced outside of our physical selves.

Which means God can only be experienced within; while all this time we’re searching outside of ourselves.

Now, why is this all so important?

Imagine the world seeing God in everything and in everyone?

We would acknowledge the divinity in each person.

Then we would not mistreat the environment and have compassion for all the animals.

There would be no wars and no killing.

It would be a world where everyone can live in harmony.

That for sure, is a better world.

But you don’t have to look too deeply at where the world is today to realise that despite its inherent beauty, unnecessary suffering persists.

Yet, we continue to resort to temporary solutions—economic, social, or political band-aids.

But at the core of our biggest problems lies a Spiritual crisis.

One that has dire consequences if we continue to neglect it.

Perhaps it’s time to look to the God within.

I believe the answers are there.

Namaste.