The BIGGER stage

Too often we make sense of life without moving beyond a preoccupation with self. Pride keeps us locked in the room of self deception, and we see things through a warped understanding. We lift up our soul to what is false. We would do well to locate ourselves on a BIGGER stage, see ourselves in a community far wider than our immediate needs and networks. Where does your imagination take you? Where do your needs take you?

This BIGGER stage is called history.

For thousands of years we find that God has judged nations and people. We don't like to see God as judge because it doesn't play well into our self-serving illusion that the world was created for our glory.

From the time Esau sold Jacob his birthright, there have been rivals to God's glory. There have been periods when God's rivals get the upper hand on God's people, such as the Edomites did with Israel. Each time God brings total desolation to anything that opposes His glory. History shows that people trust in the treasures, the wisdom, the allies, and the fortresses that they collect and hold dear through the pride that they did this through their own efforts.

The BIGGER stage of history reveals two consistent truths about the pride that deceives those seeking their own glory. First, all of these benefits ultimately betray those who think that what they have gives them a personal advantage over God's purposes. Second, these are gifts from God that are possessed by a proud heart.

This perspective is especially salient to our nation today. We are in political disarray. God's people have held dear to our country as a blessing from God. We have many advantages in our Constitution, our economics, and our freedoms. We must be careful that we not be deceived, that we not see these benefits pridefully as our advantage and remember that God does what He does for His glory.

Finding our true self outside the BIGGER stage is a flattering allegiance to bias and deception!

The BIGGER stage of history constantly reveals to us that God judges and desolates not to harm us, but to love us into Grace and out of deception.

Just a passing thought I wanted to ponder ....