I had an epiphany watching Strawberry Shortcake yesterday.
The crisis of the day was that Peppermint Fizz didn’t like Strawberry’s new friend, Rainbow Sherbet. Rainbow was different. Peppermint didn’t like different. This was berry, berry distressing for Strawberry and all the residents of Berry Land. Thankfully, Strawberry applied her trademark sweetness to the problem and found a solution. Peppermint just needed a different way of seeing. An impromptu costume party, a batch of cookies, and twenty-two minutes later, Peppermint, Rainbow, and the whole gang were friends again.
Despite the fact that I’m still waiting to figure out where all these fruit-flavored people came from, something about the story line stuck with me. Sometimes God calls us to a different way of seeing.
Isaiah 19 wraps up a long passage of prophetic judgments against Israel’s neighbors. Yet at the end of Isaiah 19 God reminds the people that his heart is always for redemption for both Israel and her neighbors.
Even Egypt.
In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt, and a monument to the Lord at its border. It will be a sign and witness to the Lord Almighty in the land of Egypt. When they cry out to the Lord because of their oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and he will rescue them. So the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the Lord.
In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance (Isaiah 19:19-21, 24-25).
Egypt . . . my people? Assyria. . . my handiwork? Could that be right? Those were the names God has always used for Israel, his chosen people.
It was Egypt who had enslaved the Hebrew people, Egypt who had slaughtered their baby boys, Egypt who they used as a symbol of idolatry and bondage. And now God was saying that he would give Egypt their own version of the Exodus–that when Egypt cried out for deliverance God would hear and send them a savior?
Impossible.
And to call Assyria God’s handiwork? That crazy prophet must have gotten it wrong this time. Even as he spoke the people of Israel could feel Assyria’s hot breath on the backs of their necks. Assyria–the nation who viewed cruelty in warfare as an act of service to their gods. Assyria impaled the enemy on pikes and left them to die. They boasted of flaying those who resisted them and draping their skins over the walls of the city. They hung the heads of defeated soldiers on trees to show the futility of resistance. Yet Isaiah predicted a day when Israel would joyfully worship together with Assyria.
Unthinkable.
Unless God gave them a different way of seeing.
God’s heart was always for the redemption of the nations–all the nations. He chose Israel as his people to be a light showing the way, a people who would declare to a watching world that their God was like no other. They were to be a people who invited the world to share in their identity as God’s chosen people, for in God’s heart we are all chosen.
To fulfill that mission Israel had to learn a different way of seeing. They had to stop seeing people as enemies and start seeing them as the handiwork of God. They had to recognize that they were not the only people who cried out for a Deliverer. They had to embrace the realization that God offered the same grace to others he had shown them.
I think sometimes God has the same lesson for us. We need to learn a different way of seeing. Like Peppermint Fizz, we’re quick to dislike those who aren’t like us. We assign people to categories. Us versus them. Friends versus enemies. People we like versus people we don’t. People God loves and people he hates. Funny how in our imaginations God always groups people the same way we do.
God calls us to find a different way of seeing–to recognize that our God is no respecter of persons, but longs for all people to draw near to him.
Even the people we don’t like.
Even the people who are mean.
Even the addicts.
Even the poor.
Even the gays.
Even the Muslims.
Even me.
In those places where we are tempted to fear, separate, and withdraw, we must ask God for a greater revelation of his heart. These people we fear and distrust–what is the destiny God has called them to? What is God’s desire for them? How does God long to draw them to himself?
Then, when we glimpse it, we take that thought in the heart of God and reflect it back to him in prayer. When we see differently, we pray differently. Praying differently gives strength to our proclamation: Our God is a God who redeems.
To preach it, we have to believe it. Lord, open our eyes to see.
Q: Where is God challenging you to see differently?
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2 comments
We watched that episode the other day! Ha! I often find myself praying, asking God to give me His eyes to see people the way He sees them, and to love them the way He does. That kind of thinking is transforming.
Thanks! You’re right–seeing people the way God does transforms our thinking.
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