It was hard not to stare at the cashier as she scanned my groceries at the checkout counter. She was clearly from a different country, and strikingly beautiful–beauty that was not diminished in the slightest by the horrific burn scars that covered the bottom of her face. Were they caused by fire or by acid? We both made pains to look away. How she must have suffered, both during the traumatic event, and since.
I found myself enraged. Who did this to her? How dare they? I fought the cynicism and callousness that tried to peek around the corner of my heart. My social worker friends, they see this all the time, the wanton cruelty of men against women, of the powerful and privileged against those they can get away with victimizing. Such ruminating led to theological reflection on the sinfulness of man. And it forced me to look at the sin in my own heart: the tiredness, the bitterness, the anger, the little unkindnesses I allow myself throughout the day. I know the Bible says that love is patient and kind, but perhaps that can wait for when I have more bandwidth. As God said to Cain, “Sin is crouching at your door.” (Genesis 4:7)
I am convinced that the heart of justice is a sovereign move by the Holy Spirit to cut the world to its heart with the conviction of sin. It’s not that we need to be convinced that we are sinful, or that we need to stew in remorse for our sinfulness before we deserve the grace of God. It’s that evil and injustice demands a reckoning–a reckoning that forces perpetrators to look without filter upon who they truly are and what they have wrought upon the world. Conviction is such a reckoning. It forces me to see that though I have never lit another human being on fire, I have been unkind in many ways, and have done damage to the image of God in areas I can more easily ignore, areas that society is less likely to hold me accountable for. When I am truly forced to see, there are only three roads open to me. Either I tear at myself in agony, I harden my heart and become a monster, or I throw myself upon the mercy of God to transform me from the inside out, and in doing so, perhaps render the world a little more just.
Only an encounter with the Living God can bring about such conviction. That is why I must invite His presence. That is why I desperately need His presence. And that is why mission must start with me. I need to be cut first. I need His refining fire to burn me (Isaiah 6:7-8), so that the world can become safe for image-bearers of God once more.
Not By Sight 