What is God Like ?

Years ago, I heard a story which intrigued me. A family just had a new baby and her older brother, still very young himself, was always trying to be with the baby. The reason was revealed thanks to a bit of technology. They had an intercom set-up in the baby’s room in case she woke up and they would be able to hear her cries from the living room or bedroom as there were speakers there. 

One evening as the parents sat in the living room, they heard their son talking to the baby through the intercom and he said to his baby sister “tell me what God is like; I can hardly remember” 

It was the word ‘remember’ that caught my attention.  It points to the intimacy of the act of creation; like in Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. 

And in the Psalm 139:13 and 16 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. and your eyes saw my unformed body.    

I wonder, as our Father created our immortal soul and incorporated body and soul, did we catch a glimpse of Him? Did He pause to gaze on His handiwork as He loved us into existence for His own purposes? 

The veil between the spiritual world and the physical is thin but quickly becomes blurred. I know of a family who when they used to pray the rosary together the toddlers could see their Guardian Angels but as they grew older their vision of the invisible world was lost. 

The ache in the human heart to return to God is helpful as it is unsettling. It points to the possibility of union or reunion with our heavenly Father, with the One who made us. We can have that intimacy again; fill the God-shaped hole in our being again by means of prayer. We knew Him once, we can know Him again. With open, persevering hearts, all of us can be made new, and we can grow in the experiential knowledge that we are truly His sons and daughters, beloved and precious to Him and utterly dependent on Him.