Transparency

I was watching an episode of Blue Planet that featured life on the ocean floor. Talk about evidence that God has a vivid imagination—wow! The creatures that live in an environment almost totally void of light are unique to say the least. The fang fish has teeth too large to close its mouth. Angler fish (yes, the kind in Finding Nemo) use luminescent "lures" to hunt. A squid squirts a time-delayed ink that lights up after it has already gone to avoid being lunch. One fish has a mouth so big it can swallow prey its own size. And the size of the eyes on some—think of those greeting cards with the cute animals whose eyes are bulging off the card. Yeah, those eyes are small.

Some fish are transparent. Apparently it's hard for other fish to eat what they can't see. What an incredible defence mechanism! I'm sure we all think it be great to be transparent at times.

To God, we are. There's no hiding a single thing from Him—we're totally transparent. Our survival depends on it. It's our ticket to life. It seems counterintuitive because part of what God sees is our sin—the crud that would make us unpalatable if we were to be eaten. But the cool part is God doesn't want to devour us. His love for His beloved creation sees beyond all that, and he is able to see us in our full potential, as if we were to fully cooperate with his grace. He not only sees us as we are meant to be, he cleans us with the grace of forgiveness so we are more in sync with who He created us to be.

There are always potential hurdles—always self imposed—that can prevent us from being cleaned, distancing our actual selves from our potential Saintly selves. It's kinda like the transparent fish playing Marco Polo. It's counter-productive if you want to live. Lucky for us God is both patient and persistent, not an opportunistic predator. Keep in mind there is one of those out there in our spiritual lives, so choose your swimming partner wisely.