A Book of Faces

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Facebook. It's all the rave. If you're not on Facebook, then most that are wonder about you, "Well then, why not?" The Facebookers can't understand your reason. True Facebookers can hardly remember what life was like before without Facebooking.


Facebook though? An interesting name don't you think? Why "Facebook"? Because it's a "book" of your "face"? And not only your face, but a book showing all the faces of your friends. Some you know well. Some you don't. Some you wish you did. Some you'd like not to be friends with, but the rejection of the acceptance of their request would hurt feelings, so you befriend them anyway.


If you're on.... what kind of "book" is your "face" showing?


Not just in pictures. But in words? In status-es? In comments? In "like"s? I'd like to suggest, that some show more of their faces than perhaps they should! Or, is that so? Isn't it rather more honest, not to only show the face you'd like to be seen as, but to show your true face as it really is?


But again, "Facebook"? Why "Facebook"? Do we have need for others to see our face? Do we have such great need to have them look? To have them address it? To have people respond to it? To have people validate it? To have people rally it? Encourage it? Praise it? Inspire it? Promote it? Do we have NEED for other "faces" to "like" what we "like"? Or to "like" what we've said? Do we have great want for them to agree with us? Inside.... do we LONG for people to LOOK? To SEE me?! To SEE my face!!! To REALLY see  it? To tell me what I LOOK like to them... but only if it's a good thing, a positive thing, a thing I want to hear, a pleasant thing, a thing that'll make me feel good, a thing I will like!


What is it about our faces that need to be seen?


Do we have need to know that we're important? That people see us? That people are looking? That we're not invisible? Do we have need to be noticed? Isn't it because, to somebody out there, we have true need to matter?


Facebook...? Why, I wonder? 


I think maybe the answer is, is that we have need to see. And we also (maybe even more?!) have need to be seen! 


I think it's interesting that God also wants to see.... and also wants to be seen. Psalm 53:2 says, "God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God."  I love that verse! It always reminds me of the song, 'I was looking back to see.. if you were looking back to see.. if I was looking back to see.. if you were looking back at me.'


"God looks down"... "The Lord looked down" (as Psalm 14:2 puts it).  "Looked down" is shaqaph in the Hebrew. The original word meaning (as per Barnes' Notes of the Bible) "conveys the idea of "bending forward," and hence, of an intense and anxious looking, as we bend forward when we wish to examine anything with attention, or when we look out for one who is expected to come." Strong's defines it further as "to overlook [to look over], to look down or out, to look out and down, to lean over and look down." 


I love the imagery! God looks down(!).... He bends forward, He looks over, He looks out and down, He leans over and looks down.... He looks! He looks intensely and anxiously looking to examine us with His focused attention.


He looks "to see". He gives attention to, He looks intently at, He looks to inspect, to perceive, to consider, to regard, to watch, to observe in order to find out. 


"God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see IF there are any who understand, any who seek" Him!


In another verse we're told that "the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him" (2 Chron 16:9). Woe, God's looking! Another (another of my favorites!) says, "The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them." (Exo 2:23-25). 


You know, God said that, "You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all of your heart." God wants to be sought! More than that, God wants to be found! Even better than that, God Himself (as our Shepherd) goes looking (seeking) for His lost sheep. He has need to be seen.... and He has need to see! We, too, have need to be seen... and we have need to see!


Facebook. It all boils down to a book of faces. The ultimate is though that God seek ours... and that God wants us to seek His! Now there's a face that I want to see! And it's a face, too, that I want to see me! Oh, if only we could see HIM seeking ours... as we seek His!


Wow, you know, I think of it often... what for real will it be like when we SEE, truly SEE, our Savior's face face-to-face!!!


Facebook? We have another "facebook", you know? As I type, mine sits in my lap. It's in the Words that God has written to us... for all over it on each page, it shows HIS face... and sweetly, it also shows mine! It shows how He sees me. It shows that He looks!
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