“How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.” Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.”
Faith is a tricky thing. If we were to approach a random person with the message of the Gospel and tell them to simply believe, they would probably shrug us off and move on. In the text above, Christ reveals to Nathanael that he saw him under a tree…and based on Nathanael’s response, he was shocked. No doubt he believed he was completely alone under this tree and the fact that Christ actually saw him was bewildering, incredible, miraculous. If it weren’t miraculous, Nathanael likely would have responded with something like, “Yeah, so what…you were standing over by the fence. I saw you too.” It was this unbelievable revelation by Christ that made Nathanael a believer. It allowed him to see that this man Christ that stood before him was no ordinary man…he was in fact THE Savior that they had been waiting for in the Jewish culture for hundreds of years. Turning our lives over to a set of beliefs is no small matter and often time it takes some kind of significant experience or event to really see God. For some it may come through a joyful event…maybe a cure from illness, an unexpected financial gain, a new marriage, or the birth of a child. For others it may come through a more negative event that God uses to turn our lives towards the positive…towards faith in him. It could be of great magnitude or relatively simple like the example above with Nathanael. However it comes, we as Christians must keep our eyes and ears open to how God works in our lives…how he works to bolster our faith, build upon the foundation and strengthen our relationship with him. Even when we can’t see him, God is at work. What a gift to have the very Creator of all things working daily in our lives! To God be the glory!
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