Making the Invisible Visible

In Romans 1, Paul declares his commitment to sharing the gospel and how God desires to make Himself known to those who do not know Him:
16For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.17For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith."18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,19because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.20For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse...
In verse 17, we see that the righteousness of God is revealed as we walk by faith - in other words, in a sense, we are called to display the reality of an invisible God through the way we live our lives.   We, as believers, are called to make the invisible visible, to be a tangible expression of the presence of Almighty God.   As new creations, we do that, and as verse 20 reinforces, we see that the creation testifies to the presence of a Maker, a designer, the blessed controller of all things, who has made Himself know by what He has created and has expressed His nature by who He has re-created in bringing us to salvation.  

In 1st Timothy 1, Paul writes about the visible, tangible expression of the risen Christ through the redemption that he experienced:
15This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.16However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life.17Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. 

Frank DeFrietas has a unique way of putting his faith into action - you see, he deals in the art of holography, involving laser technology and holograms, using light to project various images.   He is quoted on his website, Holoworld.com, as saying that, "Science is the study of the physical manifestations of God in action", and one of his most recent projects was unveiled over the weekend at the New York Hall of Science Maker Faire event, which was attended by some 70,000 people.  The project - what he calls the world's smallest Lord's Prayer; in fact, DeFrietas has asked Guinness to verify that this is indeed a world record.   Frank relates that a surprise to him was meeting youth who had never even heard of the Lord's Prayer. They were seeing it, and reading it, for the very first time -- on a beam of light from a laser.

He writes that a young man asked him, "Why is the Lord's Prayer being shown in a science museum"? His response was (and is) that the Lord's Prayer has been shown in science museums and expositions for over 150+ years. Back then, it would come under the category of mechanical sciences, such as engraving with a reduction pantograph. After all, the late 19th and early 20th century was truly the industrial age and the era of the machine.  He says, "In today's 21st century world, and particularly with my attempt, it would fall under the physics of light (lasers) and holographic optics. In the future, it may fall under interplanetary space communication technologies."

So how small is it?   He states that the size that he's giving is 100-microns for the image area, or the average diameter of a human hair. At its largest possible size, it could be no more than 500-microns, since that is the diameter of the spot size of the laser beam.

He writes, "I'm very curious as to how size verification will be achieved with a hologram, since it is composed of nothing more than the interference pattern of coherent laser light. The Lord's Prayer exists as phase information only. In fact, it is completely invisible to the human eye until the hologram is oriented properly, and a laser beam is brought in to the hologram at a specified angle of incidence."   He says that the hologram stores its own optics, meaning no microscope is needed to view it:  He says that the Lord's Prayer can be magnified greatly, projected onto a wall, ceiling or screen, even though the image area is only microns in size. With enough laser power, the world's smallest Lord's Prayer could be projected onto the side of a building -- all from the optical information within in the hologram itself.

So, the hologram itself has the innate ability to make the invisible visible.   Words that are contained within an area the diameter of a human hair can be magnified greatly through this technology.   

There are quite a few faith implications here.   For one thing, we as believers are called to make the invisible visible - through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can manifest a visible presence of God through our countenance and our behavior.  God is invisible, but He can be seen through the activity that is released through creation - the evidence of design - and through the way we live in this world.   We are called to take the principles of Scripture and making them tangible.   

And, think about the Lord's Prayer, or any prayer, for that matter - a prayer is more than just words on a page or words that proceed from our mouth - prayers that are uttered in faith, calling out to God, can produce enormous power and can result in an answer that is brought about by Almighty God.   Prayer takes the intangible notions of words and faith and can bring them in to the realm of the physical - as Romans 4, we can essentially, through our prayers, call things that are not as though they were.   

We live in a physical world, but we are immersed in the supernatural.  There are forces all around us that we cannot see with our eyes, but their activity can be seen.    And, through an understanding of God's Word and spiritual discernment, we can identify what God is doing and attribute what we see in the visible to what is going on behind the scenes in the invisible.   There is a world beyond our physical senses, beyond what we can see, and I believe the Lord wants us to recognize this realm so that we can grow in our faith and operate in this world as those who are not of this world.   

Frank DeFrietas uses technology to help people see God - he's bringing the invisible into the visible and making people aware of the Lord's Prayer.   We can ask ourselves how we are displaying, making visible, the presence of Christ through our lives, testifying to His greatness.