They still did not believe in him, so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” John 12:37-38
When a picture is put in a new frame, that same picture can look entirely different. Before it was placed in the new frame, you barely noticed it hanging on the wall, but now it draws your eye and becomes a very attractive feature.
Many people view their lives in the old frame called unbelief. Unbelief is the default mode of the human heart. In this frame, your life looks like a series of events from which God is largely absent. Many Christians profess faith but live in unbelief. You feel that God watches passively from a distance, and that He is either unable or unwilling to do anything about your illness, your family, your broken heart. If you look at your life in that frame, you will live in constant confusion, doubt, and fear.
Now suppose you were to believe Isaiah’s message—that is, you really believe this message of the gospel. Your life would be in a new frame called faith. Faith is the cross-centered conviction that God is always up to something good. You see suffering, pain, and death. You hear evil, abuse, and injustice. You feel loneliness, heartache, and disappointment. But the Son of God loves you and gave Himself for you, and that outweighs everything else. God stepped into this world of grief and sorrow so that you would not be abandoned in it or to it.
The picture of your life would look very different in that frame. The same life always looks different when you know that life is in the Redeemer’s hands.
How might you begin to reset your life in the frame of faith instead of unbelief?
