ABSTRACT: The doctrine of sin is frequently ignored in the secular West, replaced by self-confidence and therapeutic models of self-help. Many churches, though not ignoring sin, nevertheless treat it superficially, as if sin were a problem only of behavior and not also of thought and desire. In a biblical understanding, however, sin is the moral heart-sickness at the center of our rebellion against God. When recovered, the doctrine has significant implications for personal discipleship and preaching, challenging pastors to uphold the glory of God’s holiness and boldly proclaim the good news of his grace.

What might it be like if the whole world slowly forgot the continent of North America? Ships set sail from the coasts of Europe and Africa, aiming to wander through the blue until they run ashore on Asia or Australia, but a titanic landmass keeps getting in the way. It isn’t on any of their maps. It makes no sense. The Atlantic should continue — but it doesn’t. Amnesia brings all travelers to reckon with the immovable truth.

It’s a bizarre scenario, but it happens regularly in the realm of dogma. We get theological amnesia; doctrines of the faith just slip off our radar. In our cultural moment, it’s happening with the core doctrine of sin, and we’re only just beginning to see the chaos and panic of gobsmacked travelers in the West. Let me explain what I mean, what seems to be happening, and how pastors and church leaders might respond.

‘Loss of the Consciousness of Sin’

In his classic Christianity & Liberalism, penned in 1923, J. Gresham Machen (1881–1937) wrote about the “loss of the consciousness of sin.” Before his very eyes, one of the primary doctrines of Christian faith — a continent of belief — was being left behind, forgotten, cast aside. What took its place? A strange opposite: confidence. Machen wrote,

Characteristic of the modern age, above all else, is a supreme confidence in human goodness. . . . Get beneath the rough exterior of men, we are told, and we shall discover enough self-sacrifice to found upon it the hope of society; the world’s evil, it is said, can be overcome with the world’s good; no help is needed from outside the world.¹

That final clause should give every Christian pause: No help is needed from outside the world. That captures the crippling amnesia of the secular West. What do we need to address the evils of the day? No God. No Savior. No Spirit. No revelation. Just . . . us. Thus commenced the forgetting of a continent.

Why did this happen? There is no simple answer. Machen thought that WWI had something to do with it. “In time of war,” he wrote, “our attention is called so exclusively to the sins of other people that we are sometimes inclined to forget our own sins.”² True. We can stare at darkness long enough that we seem bright in contrast. But Machen knew that the answer went deeper. He saw the change in the previous 75 years in Western culture. And he defined it as the silent “substitution of paganism for Christianity as the dominant view of life.”³ Paganism, he said, is “that view of life which finds the highest goal of human existence in the healthy and harmonious and joyous development of existing human faculties. . . . Paganism is optimistic with regard to unaided human nature, whereas Christianity is the religion of the broken heart.”⁴

Put in the plain language our neighbors might use, “We’re not that bad. We all have good things to live for and good things to chase. Let’s focus on them.” Each time this sentiment takes over in a human heart, another piece of the continent of sin disappears from view, leaving those who still talk about sin sounding outdated, detached, and even mythical.

There is now widespread amnesia about one of the biggest continents of human experience. But, of course, that doesn’t mean the continent has gone anywhere. Sin stays. Ships just run aground on its shores in defiance and call it something else. The day sin disappeared is really just the day men closed their eyes.

Of course, orthodox Christians have tried to retain their historical map, knowing how tightly linked the doctrine of sin is to other core beliefs (the doctrines of God, Christ, salvation, and sanctification, for example). While the wider Western world left behind their consciousness of sin, Bible-reading Christians held on to the concept. But even they have not been immune to the continental disappearance in the broader culture. In some ways, they have reduced the size of the continent. They have made sin less than what it truly is.

Almost a hundred years after Machen’s observation, the biblical counselor David Powlison lamented what he called “a Pelagian view of sin” within Christianity. By this he meant that many Christians viewed sin only as willed actions. Sin was simply “something wrong you do.”⁵ But is sin limited to outward action? Can you transgress God’s law in your thoughts? Yes, Jesus was clear on that (Matthew 15:19; Mark 7:21). Can you transgress God’s law in your desires? Yes, Paul was clear on that (Colossians 3:5; Galatians 5:16), and so was James (1:14–15). At the very least, then, sin involves not just actions but thoughts and desires. Sin is not merely “something wrong you do.” It is something inside you.

Defining Sin

So, what is sin? There are some questions that bring us to the edge of mystery and yet demand a definition. That’s what we have here. Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck (1854–1921), summarizing the work of many faithful theologians, concluded that sin is moral heart-sickness. Sin is not a “thing” (substance) that exists on its own in conflict with God’s goodness, fighting for prominence in a sort of yin-yang battle for balance. Rather, sin is a negation introduced into God’s good creation by creatures.

Sin is “a deprivation of that which man, in order to be truly human, ought to have; and it is at the same time the introduction of a defect or inadequacy which is not proper to man.”⁶ In other words, sin takes something good away from us and actively introduces defects and distortions. Just as cancer both destroys tissue and multiplies abnormal cell growth, sin kills holy motivations and compounds unholy ones. Unlike cancer, sin is not a substance, a thing we can examine and measure with a microscope. It is a nothingness that eats away at us until we are so weak that we cave in on ourselves.

Scripture confirms this description and gives us many concrete and colorful depictions to help us understand sin. Some are direct and others are indirect. “Sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4) — that’s direct. Sin is a failure to imitate God (Ephesians 4:22–24) — that’s indirect. Vern Poythress points out over a dozen other ways Scripture portrays sin: slavery to evil (John 8:34; Romans 6:17), lack of fellowship with God (Romans 5:10), lovelessness (Matthew 22:36–40), would-be autonomy (Genesis 3:5), pride (Proverbs 16:18), unbelief (Romans 14:23), ingratitude (1 Thessalonians 5:18), rebellion against God (Romans 8:7), hatred toward God and improper commitment (Matthew 6:24), friendship with the world (James 4:4), unfaithfulness (Leviticus 26:15), and breaking harmony (2 Timothy 3:2).⁷ In all these examples and images, sin is relational. Powlison wrote that sin “means something that wrongs a relationship. It’s different from mistake or error or failing. It describes a relational betrayal, not just a personal failing. Sin means to wrong God by betraying love for him. Sin means to wrong other people by violating love for them.”⁸

In sum, sin is moral heart-sickness, any desire, thought, or action that turns us away from God and his revealed will for our lives. There is even a sort of dark logic to sin. Scripture says that sinful desires are the roots of sinful thoughts, which become the shoots of sinful actions. James says, “each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (1:14–15). Sinful desires are the foundation for sinful thoughts, and sinful thoughts build a bridge to sinful actions. That is why we must be so vigilant in checking the desires of our hearts (see Matthew 5:28). The writer of Proverbs still has a message for the twenty-first century: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23).

The result of this dark logic of sin is our turning away from God. In turning away from God, we are left with ourselves. Sin bends us inward. We believe we are the lords of our own lives. Left unchecked, the inward bending of sin leads to death (James 1:15).

The good news is that while sin is moral heart-sickness, God offers moral heart-healing through his Son. That’s why in Christ God gives us new hearts (Ezekiel 36:26). And that’s exactly what we need. Otherwise, we remain, in Powlison’s words, “unsearchably insane.” He wrote, “The core insanity of the human heart is that we violate the first great commandment. We will love anything, except God, unless our madness is checked by grace.”⁹ Grace means a new heart, and new hearts have restored and holy motivations, desires, and thoughts. Why? Because of Jesus. “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). A new heart is guarded in Christ. Because of him, God’s grace-given goodness combats the deprivation and active corruption of sin. Through the Spirit and by Christ’s person and work, we respond with faith and repentance, trust and turning — movements in the heart enabled and executed by God himself.

Effects of Forgetfulness

Doctrines are systematically related, like systems within a single body. An unbiblical definition of sin has implications for other core doctrines. So, what are the effects of losing our consciousness of sin, or even having a Pelagian view of it? There are too many to list, but let me offer selected effects in relation to our view of God (theology proper) and our view of people (anthropology).

Our View of God

If Machen was right that confidence in our own goodness has replaced our awareness of sin, then that changes how people see God. In ages past, people viewed God as the holy thunder and blinding light that brought the dross of our sin to the surface and burned it away in fiery grace. But that was when sin was still a known continent. For most people today who are open to belief in the divine, God is simply more of the goodness they already have inside themselves. God is a comparative: stronger, wiser, nobler, kinder, more loving, more beautiful, more patient, more creative. God is more of the good things they have experienced in themselves.

With a comparative view of God, our focus becomes self-improvement or moral maturity. We try to act more like the God who is more than us. Salvation is not “God coming to you”; it’s “you going to God.” We pour our attention, money, and resources into behavioral transformation. Jesus, at best, is our example to imitate. That was precisely what Machen was fighting against in the 1920s.

A similar phenomenon happens inside the church when people carry a Pelagian view of sin. If sin is only consciously willed actions, then my primary goal is to have fewer of those actions. The aim is personal self-improvement. Sanctification is not “God shaping you to Christ”; it’s “you shaping yourself to Christ.” God, for all intents and purposes, is not really involved. And that is confirmed by two heartbreaking patterns in popular Christianity: a lack of prayer and the rise of biblical illiteracy. If our job is to change ourselves, we don’t need to rely on God in prayer, and we don’t need the cutting and correcting word of God. We can, in Powlison’s words, remain in our default position: functional atheism.¹⁰

Put these two observations together. When sin is a forgotten continent, the world outside the church is bent on treating people as semi-divine, as fully authoritative masters of their own fate (autonomy). Meanwhile, the world inside the church is bent on spiritual behavior modification: more quiet time, character improvement, community service. In both cases, Jesus Christ died for nothing. In both cases, the Holy Spirit is absent. In both cases, God is an add-on to our functionally atheistic lives.

Our View of People

These views of God are tethered to views of people. The orthodox view of people as dependent sinners in need of a Savior and ongoing sanctification gets replaced — but by what?

First, independence replaces dependence. For the broader world, people are not fundamentally dependent on God; they are fundamentally independent of everyone and everything. They need no outside help in order to thrive. That is how Machen defined paganism: “The world’s evil . . . can be overcome with the world’s good; no help is needed from outside the world.” People, in other words, are fine on their own. Spiritually speaking, the only needs and restrictions they have can be met and conquered by self-help literature, modern medicine, or a therapist. Each person is his own little kingdom, a sovereign state whose emotional and psychological status and judgments are unquestionable. After all, there is no higher authority than us. God, if he exists, is irrelevant. This is exactly what Satan wants. He wants us enraptured by self-salvation. Satan “is continually proposing self-salvation schemes to people that are designed to keep them from the real Savior.”¹¹

Our utter self-reliance makes it impossible to deal deeply with psychological issues rooted in the heart, which is part of the reason for the deluge of mental health problems in the West. Powlison often spoke of a “glass floor” that the secular psychologists of the twentieth century — Sigmund Freud, Carl Rogers, B.F. Skinner, John Bradshaw, Wayne Dyer — hit with their theories of what ailed humanity: They all began with the fundamental assumption that sin was not the problem. The problem must lie elsewhere: with other people, with repressed trauma, with negative self-image, with social acceptance. The problem was anything but sin. And because of that, their solutions were anything but holistic. They could never get to the roots of what made people tick. They chose crippling amnesia when it came to the continent of sin.

One of the results of this amnesia was a loss of personal responsibility and moral accountability. If everyone else is the cause of our problems, then we have far less to be responsible for and no one to whom we are accountable. And the worst part? The mental health problems persist and worsen. That is part of what we’re seeing in the West.

Second, functional machines replace struggling sinners. Those inside the church who embrace a Pelagian view of sin tend to treat people as machines. They have the data input they need (the gospel, church attendance, some sense of theology). What they have to work on is the output: the behavior modification. And if that isn’t happening, there must be a problem with the input; they need a better gospel, a different church, a more engaging theology. That’s how machines work. Input equals output.

And if you go a long time with frustration over the “wrong” output, you might start to tear apart the input. You might begin “deconstructing” your faith. In this scenario, that means pointing at all the problems with the input and using that as an explanation for your “stuckness.” Whatever the case, Jesus is irrelevant now, because he’s already done what he came to do: set an example for us (though we have plenty of those aside from Jesus). And the Holy Spirit is more like a myth than a meaningful person. “He’s here,” we think, “but we’re the ones doing all the hard work.”

In both camps, inside and outside the church, Christ died for nothing and the Spirit lives for no one. Both frameworks are fundamentally anti-Christian — not merely non-Christian — in their active attempt to supplant biblical truth.

Remembering Sin

Voicing the biblical doctrine of sin and upholding a faithful view of God in theory and practice is part of the work of the church. But what is the church to do in an age when people have either lost a consciousness of sin or have a defective understanding of it? Much work is required. Two of the most important places that need to be addressed are in discipleship and in preaching.

DISCIPLESHIP

First, in discipleship, begin with a searching and prayerful examination of personal sin patterns. After Jacob wrestled with God, he walked with a limp (Genesis 32:22–32). Everyone who met him would learn the story of his struggle. His limp would lead to candid conversations about God’s work in his life. Pastors can take the same approach with their own sin patterns before discipling others. Starting with themselves, they can, as my friend says, “lead with a limp.” They can own sin as the primary problem in their own life. This first-person ownership of sin allows deep discipleship of others to happen. Examine your own sin patterns. And lead with that limp when you start discipling others.

In discipleship, pastors can carefully ask how sin wreaks havoc in another’s life. The answers will be different for everyone. Some struggle with pride and others with doubt. Some face patterns of anger and others of materialism. Every child of God should know, through discipleship, what sin patterns are most prevalent for them. Personally, I am prone to thinking too much of how others view me (fear of man). I also face ongoing challenges to avoid hard things because of anxiety. And, perhaps because I was raised in a family where money was not abundant, I struggle with materialism and trusting in God’s providence. Pastors and leaders in the church have helped me see these things. If I don’t prayerfully deal with them, my heart will stay sick, and I’ll push myself away from God.

Part of discipleship means knowing your patterns of sin and how Scripture guides you to face them head-on. Leading with a limp and discussing another person’s sin may not be comfortable or popular, but it will do the most good for people as they grow in Christlikeness.

PREACHING

Second, voice the biblical doctrine of sin from the pulpit. Now more than ever, pastors need to remind those inside and outside the church what sin is. People in the Western world need to be told that sin is deep, pervasive, corrupting, blinding, embittering, deflating, self-promoting, indulgent, and crippling. It is moral heart-sickness that turns us away from God in every conceivable way, especially in our sinful desires or what the Bible calls “the lust of the flesh.”¹² Our desires are not sacrosanct; they need inspection because sin is always active. It is the main threat to human flourishing in the image of Christ.

If people don’t see sin as a great threat, they won’t see Christ as a great Savior. If no threat is perceived, no evil detected, no danger in view, then what interest will people have in a Savior? Ignorance of the doctrine of sin has made people very, very comfortable. It has made them — dare I say it — very, very pagan. And in that context, Christ is of no value. When people forget sin, they forget their need for a Savior, and they try to live autonomously. That is doomed to fail. We were not made to live in pretended isolation from God. Pastors need to delve into the doctrine of sin regularly and explore how it works in their own hearts and in the hearts of their people.

Third, boldly claim sin as people’s core problem. At one time, citing sin as the problem with humanity was commonplace in the church. Now it seems as if pastors must say something more. This might be because pastors lack a deeper understanding of what sin is and how pervasively it corrupts. They may even get bored of giving “sin” as an answer to our suffering because it’s so abstract. In a church-history class, Carl Trueman once told us that claiming sin as a cause for the world’s evil appears to yield little insight. “If someone asked you why the Twin Towers fell on 9/11, and you said ‘Gravity,’ you would be right,” he said, “but you would also reveal very little about the situation.”

It was a good point, but we can err in the other direction as well. We can focus so much on secondary causes of evil that we forget sin is the core issue. And if sin is the core issue, Jesus is the tried-and-true answer. As Powlison used to say, “There is no deeper cause for sin than sin.”¹³ It’s our duty to look at secondary causes for the evil around us, but never to the exclusion of the mysterious and irrational primary cause of sin working inside human hearts.

Naming the Forgotten Continent

Sin is an ever-present threat. Pride, egoism, self-defense, blame-shifting, social comparison, entitlement, self-justification, ignorance, back-stabbing, and ten thousand other vices influence the decisions people make. Knowing this to be true, the church should be the humblest institution on the planet. We should, as J.I. Packer once said, approach every situation with a healthy dose of self-doubt.¹⁴

People in the secular West ignore the doctrine of sin as a lost continent from a bygone era. And because of that, they will have a puzzled curiosity, at best, for Christians who seem to be “so hard on themselves.” And it’s precisely because of this that they will not value the person of Jesus Christ any more than they would value Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr.

Somehow, someway we must start showing them the continent they have ignored, the one their ships keep running into. They will try to use different labels for that land: errors, mistakes, missteps, rash decisions, thoughtlessness. But until they understand sin the way the Bible portrays it — as moral heart-sickness — they will not have a sense of the holiness of God, they will not see their need for a Savior, and they will not know the gift of living in faithful relationship with him.

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Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. (Matthew 5:7)

Rejected at every turn, the rough and destitute traveler knocks on the final door of the village, a small house next to the church. The door opens; received into the comforting warmth by a gentle old man, the traveler marvels at such kindness. He is not one to pass up an opportunity, however, so he leaves in the middle of the night, taking with him the valuable silverware in return for the welcome he had received.

Quickly apprehended, he is brought back that same day, forced to stand before the man from whom he has stolen and receive his just condemnation. But then the elderly man directs his attention to the thief. “Ah, there you are! I am glad to see you. But! I gave you the candlesticks also, which are silver like the rest, and would bring two hundred francs. Why did you not take them along with your plates?”

Here is one of the more stunning displays of mercy in literature. Jean Valjean, the criminal hardened by nineteen years of service in the galleys, receives what he never expected from the gentle bishop: mercy. And the bishop, a Monsieur Bienvenu, tells Valjean, “My brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!” (Les Misérables, 91–92).

God calls Christians to be, like Monsieur Bienvenu (whose name means Mr. Welcome), merciful people. But if we are to imitate God’s merciful demeanor, we must understand first his merciful character and his acts of mercy toward us. Only then, humbled and happy, will we imitate our perfect Father in showing mercy toward others.

God of Mercy

To understand our calling to be merciful, Christians first look to the God who describes himself as the merciful one (Exodus 34:6). David, repeating God’s declaration to Moses, sings,

The Lord is gracious and merciful,
     slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all,
     and his mercy is over all that he has made. (Psalm 145:8–9)

Considering the whole of creation as well as God’s particular actions toward his people, David sees a wondrous display that teaches him of God’s character, that he is good and merciful. These characteristics of God are part of his unsearchable greatness. He alone is great, and therefore worthy of constant praise (Psalm 145:1–3).

In creation and redemption, God acts mercifully; he gives bounteously to those in need (all creatures), especially displaying his mercy in his redeeming sinful creatures from the misery into which they cast themselves. And so the common refrain of Holy Scripture is that God is gracious and merciful. He acts thus in his works because he is, according to his own nature, good. For “whence comes his mercy,” asks John Calvin, “save from his goodness?” (Institutes of the Christian Religion 1.10.2).

Mercy Displayed and Received

In Christ, we see God’s mercy most fully on display. Writing to Titus, Paul draws attention to the divine mercy revealed in the work of the Lord Jesus: “When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy” (Titus 3:4–5). God’s goodness, because of which he lovingly created creatures for fellowship with himself, is revealed in the merciful act of salvation accomplished in “Jesus Christ our Savior” (verse 6).

In Jesus, the rich mercy of God is given to those who were “dead in [their] trespasses,” rebels who followed “the prince of the power of the air,” who “were by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:1–4). Here is the greatest possible display of mercy, for, in sending his Son, the Father does more than simply provide for needy creatures. The Son humbles himself and enters into our own neediness, taking upon himself the curse of our misery. We, fully deserving wrath, sinners utterly lost in willful darkness, are brought into the bright light of salvation by him who is life, who gives life, and who is the light of men (John 1:4).

The divine mercy we receive in Christ is not, then, a reward. It is a gracious extension of God’s bounty to another who desperately lacks. God is the wellspring of all goodness and bounteousness. When he acts mercifully toward us, he gives to those who are destitute, who, like Valjean, have nothing to offer in return. We can stake no claim on him. We can only, with the tax collector, plead, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13).

Mercy Now and Forever

Amazingly, the mercy of God is not limited to the moment of salvation. It encompasses the whole of life for God’s covenant people. For even after our sins are forgiven, we remain needy and dependent. The saints continue to benefit from the boundless mercy of God in daily life. He relieves our distress. He saves us from our enemies. He continually, moment by moment, does us good, for he “is merciful” (Luke 6:36) “and his mercy is over all that he has made” (Psalm 145:9).

Furthermore, mercy is what we look forward to in the final day. Jesus says that the merciful “shall receive mercy” (Matthew 5:7), teaching us to look ahead to mercy yet to come. Likewise, Jude tells us to wait “for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life” (Jude 21). We anticipate that, according to his mercy, God will bring us, his children and covenant people, into his presence forevermore, where we will no longer be subject to the wasting power of sin and death. Finally set entirely free, we will sing evermore of the salvation of our God, his mercy toward us (Revelation 7:10, 15–17).

We are, forever and always, recipients of mercy. Knowing all this, what then does it mean for us to be merciful?

Merciful Saints

We live in a merciless age. Transgressions of much less consequence than theft get met with outrage, public shame, and cancellation. A few wrong words can end a career or destroy a family relationship. A minor disagreement can dismember a church. Swift to deal justice, we can look at each other like so many vigilantes, waiting to seize upon the slightest infraction.

The words of Jesus pierce into this vindictive culture with the keenness of a two-edged sword: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” (Matthew 5:7). The sword of Christ cuts against all worldly inclination to turn our backs upon those in a poorer condition than ourselves, for by these words he calls attention to the poor condition of all who have received mercy from God, who know themselves to be humble recipients of God’s everlasting love. He thus challenges us to imitate our heavenly Father by showing mercy.

He also promises to give more mercy to the merciful. David attests to this in Psalm 18, where he writes that God shows himself to be merciful to those who show mercy to others, blameless to those who act blamelessly, pure to those who have been purified. “For you save a humble people,” he writes, but “you bring down” the proud, those who with “haughty eyes” consider themselves great and therefore despise others (Psalm 18:25–27). Do you hear these words echoing in the Beatitudes? “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” “the meek,” “those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” “the pure in heart,” “those who are persecuted” (Matthew 5:3–11).

Blessed are those who open their hearts and hands to the afflicted, gladly and generously giving to them out of the bounty they have received from God. Blessed are those whose homes are open to the stranger, the lowly, the needy. Blessed are those who minister to the sick, the imprisoned, the dying. Blessed are those who call the sinner to repentance. Blessed are those who forgive their brother seventy times seven times. Blessed are those who are not great in their own eyes. Blessed are those who know themselves to be recipients of mercy.

Blessed are the merciful.

A man loses a great sum of money in one day. His stocks plummet. He loses millions.

A woman finds out about the rich man’s downfall. She stares at him across the crowded room. How will he react? She needs to know. When he leaves, she follows him at a distance. What will he do next?

He stops at a local bar, orders a drink, hardly touches it. He walks on, stops at a café, orders a mineral water. He barely takes a sip. Instead, he grabs a pen and begins writing upon the receipt. What is he writing?

He stares one more time at something no one else can see, and then departs, leaving the paper behind. Once he’s out of sight, the woman rushes over to his table, picks up the paper, and sees . . . a drawing of a flower.

When Life Is Unkind, Look Down

I’ve not forgotten reading about this scene. I can almost see him sitting there, a storm raging in his heart, yet he delicately, tenderly sketches a flower. He reaches out, stretching to find beauty beyond his setbacks. To have much and to lose much and to blossom flowers in reply — I am too seldom like that.

But Jesus would have us be. He, too, tells us to look down when life is unkind. He draws near, beckoning us to look below our feet.

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? (Matthew 6:28–30)

Are you anxious about your life? Do the walls close in? Jesus would have you draw lilies. If he dresses and sustains little flowers — whose lifespan is but a day — will he not care for you? Or which parent among you would provide for his hostas and starve his children? The faith Jesus calls forth, the faith he is worthy of, is the quiet trust that bends down to pick a flower amid the hurricane, seeing there a colorful reminder that he has not forgotten us.

Spectators Above and Below

But what further captivates me is the woman’s interest. Have you ever felt the need to follow someone at a distance, someone who just went through a severe trial, to learn what happens next? Quiet is the room where a man or woman, lately returned from rough seas, finally speaks.

And this is not only a human interest. The unseen realm takes special notice of the afflicted among men. Heaven crowded to watch the contest between God and Satan in the hardship of Job. Satan, so smug, guessed well enough what would be Job’s reaction to tragedy: “Stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face” (Job 1:11). Curses. Fury. Scorn.

Satan expected to find ten gravestones scrawled on the paper in Job’s hands, one for each of his dead children. Instead, he found a paper stained with tears, ink barely legible, yet reading even so, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). Here was Job’s flower.

What Will We Draw?

Are you currently experiencing pain, heartache, loss? Without pressuring you to perform or hurry through your trials, I ask, What testimony will the world of angels and men see? Do they find something beautiful among the wreckage? Can we sing,

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate
And has shed his own blood for my soul.

When what we have dreaded comes upon us, when we are made to crawl through the valley of the shadow of death — what testimony will we leave behind? When we have gone out of sight, and onlookers dart to our tables, what will they discover on the page?

God’s mercy shines all the brighter against the darkness of our sinful past, when our rebellious desires drove us into every kind of malice and envy.

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