The Old Testament has "at its root is the idea of a holy, spiritual, self-revealing God, the free Creator of the world, and its continual Preserver."

"As correlative to this, and springing out of it, is the idea of man as a being made in God’s image, and capable of moral relations and spiritual fellowship with his Maker; but who, through sin, has turned aside from the end of his creation, and stands in need of Redemption."

"In the heart of the history, we have the idea of a Divine purpose, working itself out through the calling of a special nation, for the ultimate benefit and blessing of mankind."

"God’s providential rule extends over all creatures and events, and embraces all peoples of the earth, near and remote. In view of the sin and corruption that have overspread the world, His government is one of combined mercy and judgment; and His dealings with Israel in particular are preparative to the introduction of a better economy, in which the grace already partially exhibited will be fully revealed."

"The end is the establishment of a kingdom of God under the rule of the Messiah, in which all national limitations will be removed, the Spirit be poured forth, and Jehovah will become the God of the whole earth. God will make a new covenant with His people, and will write His laws by His Spirit in their hearts. Under this happy reign the final triumph of righteousness over sin will be accomplished, and death and all other evils will be abolished."

I say, "let's get to the last chapter." Enough already.

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." Genesis 28:16

Most of us won't get a "wake up" dream like Jacob got. When he woke up his whole world had changed. Even though this is our Father's world, we can view it flatly, in mono, black and white instead of color, lacking the lacking the heightened wonder that HD brings. This is a gift the Spirit brings.

William Blake the poet/illustrator noted that our tendency is to see only "with" the eye, when the possibility exists to see "through" the eye, beyone to the deeper truth that lays just beneath the surface of a thing. And C. S. Lewis picked up on this theme as well, in a poem he titled A CONFESSION.

I am so coarse, the things the poets see
Are obstinately invisible to me.
For twenty years I’ve stared my level best
To see if evening–any evening–would suggest
A patient etherized upon a table;
In vain. I simply wasn’t able.
To me each evening looked far more
Like the departure from a silent, yet a crowded, shore
Of a ship whose freight was everything, leaving behind
Gracefully, finally, without farewells, marooned mankind.

Red dawn behind a hedgerow in the east
Never, for me, resembled in the least
A chilblain on a cocktail-shaker’s nose;
Waterfalls don’t remind me of torn underclothes,
Nor glaciers of tin-cans. I’ve never known
The moon look like a hump-backed crone–
Rather, a prodigy, even now
Not naturalized, a riddle glaring from the Cyclops’ brow
Of the cold world, reminding me on what a place
I crawl and cling, a planet with no bulwarks, out in space.

Never the white sun of the wintriest day
Struck me as un crachat d’estaminet.
I’m like that odd man Wordsworth knew, to whom
A primrose was a yellow primrose, one whose doom
Keeps him forever in the list of dunces,
Compelled to live on stock responses,
Making the poor best that I can
Of dull things…peacocks, honey, the Great Wall, Aldebaran
Silver weirs, new-cut grass, wave on the beach, hard gem,
The shapes of horse and woman, Athens, Troy, Jerusalem.

In humbly denigrating his ability as a poet, Lewis begins with the least important things - peacocks strutting, and climaxes with the most important,  with Jerusalem and all that lies behind it.

This is calculated by Lewis in order to express his desire to see beyond a mere city of stone, and instead to see through it, comprehending the spiritual and eternal significance hidden there, hoping in so doing, to better come to understand the heart of God.

What better thing could we ask of God in 2011, that he might grant us eyes to not just see with, but through - to the ultimate realities - to God himself, and his plan in history that continuously unfolds.