There is more going on than what you see.

One of the most amazing places to which the pastorate takes me is NICU. It can be the saddest place of my life, but most often it is the most hopeful place in my life. Most of the babies I see in NICU grow up to have wonderful lives. A few do not, but most do.

It always strikes me as I’m standing in NICU that healing is taking place. It doesn’t look like healing. It looks as though nothing is happening, but as the babies bask under the warming lamps, their bodies are at work closing holes in lungs, clearing fluid, maturing under-developed organs, and growing.

Healing is often an unseen process. (See: Why Jesus Never Got Botox)

Over the weekend I visited the NICU to visit twins. As we walked back and forth between the two incubators, the parents recounted the words of the doctor that the twins can sense each other. Even though they are separated by several feet, the doctors assume they know the other is near. It is his desire to get them together as quickly as physically possible.

He told the parents he rarely sends one twin home while the other twin remains in the hospital because he believes it threatens the health of the stronger twin. In empathy for its sibling, the twin sent home is often sent back to the hospital because of declining health.

As I stood and looked at two babies sleeping a few feet apart, it looked to my untrained eye like very little was happening. But reality is that there was far more going on than I could see.

It’s true not just for newborns, it’s true for us all.

There is always more going on than what you see. (See: What Every Husband Needs to Know at least Once a Month)

It’s true on a personal level. We like to believe we have dealt with the issues from our past and that we are independent agents making decisions with complete free will. However, the truth is history, experiences, and influences are always expressing themselves through the decisions we make and how we feel. A bad experience which has never been processed is certainly expressing itself in a negative way—whether it be overeating, anxiety, an unwillingness to build close friendships, or an inability to be still and quiet.

It’s true on a community level. As we interact with others, we make snap judgments based on what we see, but we rarely see the whole story. There is always more going on which causes the employee to be late, the co-worker to be frustrated, the teacher to be disheveled, or the nurse to be hurried. While we see the complexity within our own lives, we often assume simplicity in the lives of others. We judge others as uncaring, inept, or evil, never realizing they are hurting, confused, and just trying to cope with life.

It’s true on a spiritual level. Faith says there is more to life than what meets the eye. What’s interesting is that with every scientific development, research is verifying that we see but a small part of a much larger picture. As one twin can influence his sibling although they are physically separated, so too, what we consider merely physical realities have spiritual connotations and meanings. There is a God which we cannot see. There are eternal ramifications to temporal decisions. This world is all we see, but it is not all there is.

The great danger for humanity is that we will trust our eyes to just an extent that we won’t believe anything we can’t see. We will fail to consider other possibilities and in so doing we will believe in far less than there actually is. (See: What Goes On When Every Head Is Bowed and Every Eye Is Closed)

The choice between faith and a lack of faith is often simply the difference between whether one believes they see everything or only a few things. As a person of faith, I believe I see only a part of the complete complexity of what is.

There is more going on than what you see.