The Bigger Story: Blinded Part 1

Photo by RF._.studio from Pexels

“Where is God in any of this?! If there is a God, I’m having a hard time believing it at this point!”, she exclaimed. She was filled with rage. Covid and the issues in America had overcome her. She was blinded to the face of God. 

I sunk into my chair as I listened to this woman feeling so out of control, remembering a day when I felt a similar rage to life’s circumstances.

I thought back to residing in that space of demand that God bring the order, comfort, and protection I believed I, or others, deserved. I remember thinking I was seeing the whole picture and I thought that picture stunk and God was aloof and indifferent. I remember my hope crashing down because my spiritual foundation was ultimately myself. Undergirding this posture toward God was an entitlement flowing from a belief that my nature was basically good and my demands were warranted. 

All was not grace and, as though seeing dimly through a glass, I couldn’t see Jesus grieving over their broken world—over my broken world. 

Only God can absorb our misplaced anger and contempt with such defenseless grace. He designed us with stunning beauty, and had we remained faithful to seeking life and security in Him, we wouldn’t be in this mess. And neither would He.

THE BIGGER STORY

When He created us, God set us up as kings and queens to rule over His creation—to help bring out its potential and make it more stunning than it already was. The story of the world is a story about God wanting to set up a partnership with us to spread His very goodness throughout this created world. His beauty was everywhere, and His desire to make us co-rulers of His kingdom was extravagant grace. Love was the law of His kingdom so He wouldn’t have dreamt of forcing His children’s obedience. He desired their hearts to choose Him—surrendering to His very goodness. Love, justice, and dignity marked His kingdom and it was good. 

HE DIDN’T TURN IT UPSIDE DOWN

But His children rebelled and saw their opportunity to rule as their opportunity for their own advantage. They stopped trusting God's motives and His definition of good and evil—wanting to define it for themselves. 

And when they did, they began the downward spiral of becoming less human.

So things went horribly wrong, and instead of ruling on behalf of God as His deputies, Adam and Eve ended up seizing the wheel. This resulted in the birth of an alternate kingdom—the kingdom of this world. Paul calls it the age of sin and death. Jesus calls it this age. As the first devastating act following their disobedience, Adam and Eve hid from God. God was still the loving, gracious God He’d always been. But they could no longer see Him as He was.

Baxter Kruger writes, “Sin goes way beyond disobedience. The deepest problem of sin is that it makes us utterly incapable of knowing the Father. It afflicts us with such a dastardly wrong-headedness that we cannot know the Father’s heart. It makes us so blind that it is impossible for us to see the Father’s face. And without knowing the Father’s heart, we have no basis for real assurance or hope in our lives at all. If we cannot see His face, we have no possibility of living in the freedom of His abounding love, and in the security and joy of His lavish and eternal embrace.” 

The Father gave us the freedom to reign, and we are living in the consequences of our rule. We live in the kingdom of this world, struggling to see clearly. We choose control over love. Power over surrender. Autonomy over apprenticeship to Jesus. And the result is a broken world in which wrong-headedness feels right.

In the face of God, we blindly rage. And in the face of our rage, He still invites us, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.” And since Adam and Eve usurped His good rule, He’s been pursuing reconciliation with His image bearers, longing to give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and understanding hearts that we would turn and be healed. (Isaiah 6:10)

Next post…God’s means of reconciliation…