You and an Invisible Person
Growing closer to the God you can't see
Is Harold Crazy?
Harold strolls the grocery aisles with his thick-ribbed corduroy pants, old leather penny loafers, and tweed jacket. His disheveled gray Gatsby cap and thick-rimmed bifocals confirm he’s from another time, another place. But that’s not what draws the stares of the other shoppers. It’s what they hear that makes them curious, not what they see.
Talking to an invisible person (even if that “person” is your own psyche) is a bold declaration to the watching world that there is more to life than what they can see.
Harold is in a full-spirited discussion. And there’s nothing odd about that. Grocery stores are arenas for the average conversation about weather or travel. What’s odd is that no one else is in the aisle with Harold. He’s talking to no one. Or, maybe he’s talking to himself. The latter is fairly common—although doing so in public is a bit awkward. Talking to an invisible person (even if that “person” is your own psyche) is a bold declaration to the watching world that there is more to life than what they can see.
I think often (and fondly) of Harold. In fact, I’ve had the occasional conversation with myself at the hardware store, looking for that wood screw that didn’t seem to be as common as the instructional manual suggested. As I mumbled about all the screw sizes between one and two inches, I thought Harold would be proud. We don’t need another human in the aisle when we want to speak out loud. We know who we’re talking to.
But imagine, for a moment, that Harold wasn’t talking to himself. Imagine that he was talking to an invisible person. What would you think of him then?
You and I are meant to do something like that in our relationship with God. For Christians, the Father, Son, and Spirit are invisible but ever-present persons. They’re with us everywhere. And yet, we don’t talk to them much outside of ritualized prayer, do we? We squirm with discomfort at the thought of raising our voice in public when we aren’t talking to human persons.
But maybe the church needs more Harolds. Maybe the church needs more people who are actually convinced that God is their eternal conversation partner. Maybe the church needs more people who act on their belief in God’s presence, rather than tucking the doctrine away in a mental folder to be pulled out at church services and prayer meetings. Maybe whatever kind of crazy Harold might be is nothing compared to the crazy we should be in Christ.
If Harold was a Christian, and if he wasn’t talking to himself in that grocery store, then he wasn’t crazy. In fact, the rest of the world is crazy for silently walking past God at every turn in the grocery store. It’s not that Harold is crazy for speaking to someone we can’t see. It’s that everyone else is crazy for not talking to the God who is everywhere.
Communing with the One You Can’t See
It can be hard to maintain a steady relationship with a visible person, let alone an invisible one. But this is at the heart of what it means to be united to Christ. So, I put together a video that delves into this, based on chapter 8 in One with God. I reference that story about Harold in there. Hope it’s helpful! Feel free to share it with others if it is.
