The faucet starts leaking. The car engine starts clunking. The child starts coughing. Being made of flesh, living in a physical, material world, we often wander through our days viewing people and things the same way anyone in the world would.

But there is a wonder-inspiring spiritual reality that we in God’s Church can comprehend thanks to that precious gift within us, the flowering seed of eternal God life (1 Corinthians 2:9-16).

We must pause and remind ourselves: We are regularly, routinely associating and interacting with the spirit realm, the true reality.

The Apostle John recognized this. Near the end of his life, he reflected on his extraordinary intimacy with Jesus Christ. This was a God Being, who existed from the beginning, he wrote in his first epistle. He came in human form. We saw Him with our eyes. We heard His voice speaking to us. We touched Him, like any ordinary man! Yet He was the Word—the radiant Being who shared life with God the Father before time existed!

This is the sort of realization that, even with the help of God’s Spirit, is hard to fully comprehend in the moment. The import and magnitude of what John experienced grew in his mind over time.

This great God shed His divinity and allowed Himself to be implanted, as a mere sperm cell, within the womb of a young woman. Mary gave birth to a baby who was begotten by God the Father. That is an extraordinary instance of human interaction with the divine.

This woman nursed, cleaned, held and kissed God the Father’s baby. This infant—who grew into a small child, then an adolescent—was a physical being who would one day teach multitudes, who would rule the nations, who would put down evil empires, who would lead a royal government of Spirit-born kings and priests.

How remarkable it would have been to grow up with such a child in your home! How deeply did Mary recognize this miraculous reality?

Now look at the children growing up in your home.

Do you see spiritual reality? It’s difficult to do.

These unconverted little people—flawed and frail, careless and coarse, with whom it is so easy to lose patience—have a future brighter than a thousand suns.

You know their day-to-day, their faults and foibles, all too well. But God knows them even better, and in Ezra 9:2, He calls them “holy seed.” In Psalm 127:3, He calls them “the heritage of the Lord”—a specialpossession or inheritance. In Psalm 45:16, He calls them “princes in all the earth.”

God gave these children to you and me to care for, to train, to shepherd toward lives as king-priests. They, like Mary’s child, will one day rule nations.

If we fulfill our responsibility before God with these little people, the chances are great that they will very soon be radiant beings, clothed in white robes of righteousness, teaching wisdom to travelers from around the world. They will be governing by Christ’s side from world headquarters in Jerusalem.

And not just our children. The very Spirit that begat a child in the womb of a virgin has been implanted within each baptized member of God’s Church. The very Being whom John was so ecstatic to have handled is actually coming in our flesh, converting us and shaping us into His very image. Our spouse, the brethren at services—these people we see, and hear, and touch just like ordinary people—are soon going to be God! GOD! Married to the King of kings!

Our carnal minds simply cannot see this. But this is reality.

The Pharisees interacted with Jesus Christ, just as John did. They were looking at love incarnate. Yet they saw only a sinner, and a threat to their own pretensions.

That is the trap we can all fall into unless we steadfastly resist doing so. We who possess that seed of eternal life must allow it to open our eyes to spiritual reality, and not be so distracted by humdrum flesh. Especially when it seems like it’s all leaks, clunks and coughs.

The physical is not reality. It is nothing, ultimately, but preparation. It is a gateway to eternity.

The more we see as God sees, the better furnished we are to care for these divine beings in embryo as God does (1 John 5:1).

Don’t forget. In between the laundry and the taxes and the driving around town, you are living with that spirit realm—the true reality.