Can you see the real you? Others can.
Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
—Genesis 4:9
The video begins with an innocent toddler smiling up at the camera. “Did you eat some cake?” her mother asks. The girl, whose face is smeared with chocolate icing, repeatedly denies it. The claim is absurd. Her mother knows, without a doubt, that when she goes into the kitchen, she will find a ruined cake.
Cain, the firstborn son of Adam and Eve, has a similar problem. He has just killed his younger brother in a fit of jealousy and God asks him, “Where is your brother?”
“I don’t know,” he replies, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” He has chocolate icing all over his face. God knows exactly what he has done. But he gives Cain a chance to confess, to repent. Instead, Cain digs his heels in all the harder and flippantly suggests that he has no responsibility for his brother’s well-being.
What is it about human nature that causes us to defend ourselves? To keep denying the obvious instead of owning up to what we have done? We want to look good. We pretend that our motives are pure and our actions are exemplary. But we have chocolate icing on our faces. The truth is, when we are confronted with what we have done, we get defensive and pretend we are clean.
We serve a God who knows us thoroughly and loves us anyway! He knows our heart. He longs for us to admit, “I did it, I messed up.” Cain could have received forgiveness if he had admitted his mistake and shown remorse for his actions. God has proven Himself to be longsuffering, gracious, and forgiving.
It doesn’t matter what we’ve done. God knows. So maybe it’s time to look in the mirror and see all that icing that everyone else can see. We are a mess! And then, we can look upward because we have a heavenly father waiting to help clean us up — not just our face, but our entire life!
—Kathy McMillan, MA, is director of Employee Spiritual Care for Loma Linda University Medical Center.
