I first met Josh (my husband of 7 years) through the Navigators at the University of New Mexico. My older sister had engrained herself in community there, and as a high school senior with my sights set on entering the college experience, I begged her to bring me along to all of her college events.

One Wednesday evening, the weekly event called “Nav Night” started, and all the heads in the room turned as this long-haired guy and his road bike entered after the worship had already begun. I looked back and instantly thought, “Who is that guy? He’s attractive.”

I didn’t speak to Josh that night, or at all for another year until I was actually on campus as a college student. By that time, my sister had basically decided I would enter an arranged marriage with another student she had become close friends with. I had long forgotten that I had any interest in getting to know who Josh was as I thought my future marriage was already decided.

So, my preliminary interactions with Josh happened in group settings with no thought on my mind to pursue anything other than an acquaintanceship. The initial judgment I had made with my eye, through sight alone, was irrelevant, and I now had the chance to gain a greater understanding and appreciation with Josh through hearing.

Unfortunately, the more I heard Josh speak in theological debates and weighty conversations, the more I came to dislike him. I perceived him as condescending, and the way he would get passionate in conversation made me think he was too harsh. The judgment of my ears didn’t match the initial judgment of my eyes.

But later on, I began to realize that the judgment I was making of him based on the things I heard from him were tainted by that initial judgment of the eyes. Upon seeing him, I formed an image in my head of how his physical appearance should translate into personality, and any deviation from that judgment meant I would conclude that he was not good enough for me.

In the same way, we are commanded not to create graven images of God because this is the manmade perception cycle we get stuck in: we create an image in our minds of who God should be and then fight against our inability to break from the expectations we assign to God based on the image we’ve created. We long to know God through image, through sight, but because our God is so much bigger than what our minds could ever conceive, our sight limits our relationship even more.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9

Everyday requires an evaluation of our sight-limiting perceptions of God. Where are our graven images keeping us from hearing and understanding God when He speaks? How is our worship of the manmade image we’ve each created in our minds of Him causing us to believe He isn’t speaking, or even worse, causing us to imagine the words we think He should be speaking?

“This life’s dim windows of the soul,
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole,
And leads you to believe a lie,
When you see with, not through, the eye.”
-William Blake

~Emily Spare