One thing that prevents us from seeing with open vision is being trapped in familiarity. We live in environments and within cultures that shape our frame of reference. Our interpretation of God and the very scriptures are even framed through our cultural constructs. We filter what we see and process through cultural lenses. Our challenge, therefore, is interpreting the truths of God within the context of the culture in which we live.
RELEVANCE
Interpreting the truth is often difficult because we tend to find comfort in the familiar. That’s why God sometimes has to shake things up; even allow things to become painful. We often tend to live with pain rather than proactively seek new possibilities because the pain of the familiar is often easier to cope with than the risk or fear of the unknown.
The reason is lack of faith from believing in falsehood. When we don’t have faith, we can’t have hope. In order to come to faith we must conquer doubt. “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23). Fear, however, is always based on falsehoods. Fear is the opposite of faith.
Fear keeps us trapped in the false comforts of the familiar due to lack of faith in the unknown. It leads to stubbornness and prevents us from seeing truth and receiving new information to help us make right choices and decisions. It keeps us from receiving grace to see and accept new opportunities that can reposition us.
God, however, is always doing new things. He is Creator. He is a God of promises and possibilities. Isaiah encouraged God’s people to find faith for the future. “Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I declare…” (Isaiah 42:9).
In order to receive new things from God, we must choose to come out of constraints of familiarity. It takes being sick of the pain of the past and present to want the promises of the future. It takes wanting and choosing change. It takes coming to the truth that what we think is comforting is nothing but an illusion of falsehood.
God wants you to be set free from snares, traps and places of captivity! Hear his heart expressed through the prphet Isaiah.
“But this is a people robbed and plundered;
All of them are snared in holes,
And they are hidden in prison houses;
They are for prey, and no one delivers;
For plunder, and no one says, “Restore!”
(Isaiah 42:22)
The Bible says Jesus lives to make intercession for you (Hebrews 7:25). Believe He is praying for you to be set free and restored!
REFLECT AND RELATE
What false comforts might you be trapped in?
Can you see God at work engineering new possibilities?
REFERENCES
Isaiah 42:1-9