She’s a believer. Good people, the real kind. Prays every day. Always there for whoever needs her, and she knows the Bible better than some pastors. Not only that, she lives the Bible better than I live it in my best weeks.
But she does all of that wearing a bright red MAGA hat, rooting for him.
The man we watched mock a disabled reporter, brag on tape about what he grabs, promise revenge on his enemies from a podium. Nobody made this up. We’ve seen the clips. She’s seen the clips. And she’s out there winning converts for him, and calls it faithfulness.
He’s my friend too. As serious about the Kingdom of Jesus as she is, maybe more. He fasts, serves the needy, and forgives people I wouldn’t.
But he votes left, every single election, singing the chants and marching the marches.
For the people who celebrate ending a pregnancy like it’s a sacrament, who put ideology in front of other people’s children, who treat the faith he says he loves as an embarrassment to be managed. He’s read the same headlines I have. And he keeps preaching their case anyway, and calls it faithfulness.
Same Bible, same verses, same Jesus.
And I sit there, confused: how can this friend of mine, this person I know loves Jesus and his Kingdom, be so blind?
I’ve been praying for them. Really.
Lord, open her eyes,
soften his heart...
and lately the prayer keeps making a U-turn and coming back to me. Like the Spirit takes the sentence out of my mouth mid-air and hands it back with my name written on it.
Which Trump do I vote for? Which cause do I march for?
The question won’t let go of me. I’m washing dishes and it’s there. I’m driving and it’s there:
What am I praising that Jesus never asked me to praise? Whose converts am I out there winning?
Why do you stare at the speck in your friend’s eye, Jesus asks me, when in yours there’s a log you’ve already learned to look around?
Because think with me: if she can love Jesus like that and still be that blind, then loving Jesus protects nobody’s eyesight. And I love Jesus. So what am I not seeing?
In moments like this I always like to go back to the Scriptures, so grab your favorite drink, get comfortable, and come with me.
Peter is hungry.
He’s on a rooftop in Joppa, around noon.
Sun on his neck, the good smell of lunch rising, hunger pressing, he’s counting the minutes, and while he waits, he has an experience. A vision. A dream. Pick whatever word works best for what he went through. But according to the account, he saw something:
A sheet comes down from heaven, full of animals, every one of them something his tradition, his family, his whole life taught him never to touch. And a voice says: get up, kill and eat.
Peter says no. To God!
“Surely not, Lord.”
Three years walking with Jesus, he saw everything we’ve only read about. Jesus walking on the sea, healing people, raising friends from the dead, and then coming back from the dead himself. And still Peter resisted walking toward the place God wanted to take him. And the scary part: he wasn’t rebelling. He was convinced.
The blind spot felt like faithfulness.
And this isn’t a Peter exclusive. Jonah was furious that God forgave the city he hated, and accused God of being… good: “I knew you were gracious.”
James and John, standing before a Samaritan village that treated them badly, are quick to ask Jesus: “want us to call down fire?”
And Jesus rebukes… not the village. Them.
These weren’t just anybody. They were followers of Jesus, convinced they were doing the right thing: the rock, the prophet, and the Master’s inner circle.
If they managed to build a god who hated the right people and blessed the right side, I’m not above it. I just can’t see mine. And that’s exactly what makes it mine.
I know the commandment.
You shall have no other gods, you shall not make a carved image.
I always pictured a statue. A “saint.”
But I never pictured that a god who votes like me, hates who I hate, signs off on how I spend my money and how I fight with people is an image I build. Even without a statue, without a lit candle… I’m kneeling in front of another god, an image.
A mirror with my name on it.
So here’s my invitation to you, and it’s not an easy one.
Look at your walk, the last few weeks, or months, or years… and try to remember the last time you and Jesus disagreed. Yes, disagreed.
Try to remember, clearly, the last time you had to “redefine Jesus.”
When he invited you into something unexpected, different. Something your first reaction was to say “surely not, Lord” to:
- the door you didn’t want to walk through,
- the person you’d rather see punished than forgiven,
- the behavior you were sure was right but had been wrong the whole time.
If you can’t find one… it might be that the god you follow never takes you anywhere.
He only agrees.
And a god who only agrees with me isn’t God, it’s a mirror.
Idolatry!
The most famous sin of the Ten Commandments, without ever owning a statue.
I’m still surprised when I see brothers and sisters in Christ so blind about something so clear to me.
But I’m far more worried about my own myopia.
May God have mercy on us
and, in his grace, open our eyes.