The Man Who Refused to See

 

Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque, Istanbul, Türkiye

The tragedy of a man who hardens his heart

“They have eyes but do not see, ears but do not hear.” Psalm 135:16

            There is a kind of blindness that is not of the body but of the soul. A blindness that is chosen, brick by brick, excuse by excuse, until the man who once saw truth now walks in darkness and calls it light. It does not happen all at once. A mind does not wake up one day and declare, I will now blind myself to reality. 

No. It is a slow descent, a process, a series of choices so subtle they feel like survival.

            It begins with a wound. A real one. Maybe a disappointment or a failure or a betrayal or maybe, a shame too great to bear. The wound festers, not because it must, but because healing requires facing pain, and pain is unbearable to the man who has built his life on control. So he does the next best thing.

        He covers it. He wraps it in justification and in excuses. Covers it up with reasons why this wound was never his to carry. Someone else put it there, he justifies. Someone else is always to blame. And so  he does not have to look at himself. 

            This is the tragedy of a man who hardens his heart, a man who hears the voice of the Lord calling him to repentance but refuses to listen. It is the story of Pharaoh, who saw the hand of God and still clenched his fist. It is the story of the rich young ruler, who stood before Jesus but loved his wealth too much to follow Him. It is the story of Saul, the anointed king, who convinced himself that disobedience was righteousness.

And it is the story of the man who now sits in his house, alone, writing down his own gospel of self-pity.

“But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears.” Zechariah 7:11

        Once, his heart was made of flesh. He loved, he wept, he believed. But somewhere along the way, the choice was set before him: to soften or to harden, to surrender or to resist. He chose resistance.
        Perhaps, in his earliest days, he learned that vulnerability was dangerous. That to be seen was to be shamed. That to admit fault was to be weak. And so, he built his walls. He convinced himself that the fault was always outside of him because if it was within, it would be too unbearable. His pain is real. His fear is real. He is not a monster, but a man drowning in his own wounds, unable, and maybe unwilling to reach for the hand that would save him.
        It is not enough to be hurt. He must be wronged. He must become the hero of his own tragedy, the victim of a cruel and unjust world. His failures are no longer his own; they are the fault of a wicked wife, ungrateful children, a world that does not understand his suffering. So he retells the story. Again and again. Until he believes it. Until his reality is no longer what happened, but what must have happened for him to remain blameless. The lie solidifies. It becomes scripture. 

And now, he does not know how to live any other way.

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness.” Isaiah 5:20

            A man who refuses to repent must find another way to justify himself. And so, he rewrites the story. But perhaps he does not even know he is doing it. Perhaps, in his mind, he truly is the victim. He does not wake up in the morning and decide to be blind. His mind has twisted the truth to protect itself, to keep him from having to face the deep, raw ache of shame. To acknowledge the truth would mean undoing years, even decades of self-deception. And so, he clings to his version of events, because the alternative feels like death.

“Do you want to get well?” John 5:6

I wonder why Jesus asked the man at the pool of Bethesda the strange question," Do you want to be healed?"
Maybe because not all men do.

Some hold onto their wounds like lifelines. Some wear their suffering like armour. This man has learned that his pain gives him power. It makes him the righteous one, the misunderstood one, the one to be pitied.
And so, he holds onto it. Not because he is evil. 

But because he is afraid.
If he lets go of his pain, who will he be? If he stops blaming, will he have to face himself?

        A man who refuses to heal must make his wounds useful. He turns them into tools. A whip for those who challenge him. A shield for those who question him. A key to every door that would otherwise remain closed.
“How can you blame me when I am suffering?”
“How can you hold me accountable when I have been so wronged?”
“How can you expect me to change when I have been wounded so deeply?”

Pain becomes currency. And the world must pay.

“The time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine… they will gather around them teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” 2 Timothy 4:3

            A man who wants to be seen as godly but refuses to submit to God must find a way to reconcile the two. And so, he twists the Word. But maybe, in his own heart, he does not even know he is twisting it. Maybe he believes that he is righteous. That his suffering makes him Christ-like. That his enemies are the enemies of God.
Maybe, in the quiet of the night, when no one is watching, a part of him wonders if he is wrong. But that voice is too painful to listen to. And so, he silences it.

“They will put you out of the synagogue… they will think they are offering a service to God.” John 16:2

A victim cannot exist without an oppressor. And so he names one. 

Maybe it is his wife, who no longer tolerates his cruelty. 

Maybe it is his children, who have stopped seeking his approval. 

Maybe it is the friend who finally walked away. 

Maybe it is the God who dares to hold up a mirror.

        Whoever it is, they must be destroyed. Not physically, no, of course that would be too obvious. But their credibility must be ruined. Their character must be torn apart. Their very existence must be questioned.
“She has always been this way.”
“They have turned against me.”
“God is punishing me.”

Truth does not matter. What matters is the feeling of righteousness, the belief that his suffering is not his doing but theirs. There is no suffering quite like loving a man who refuses to see the truth.

His wife once thought she could reach him. That if she was patient enough, gentle enough, loving enough, she could show him the light.
If she bends, if she submits, if she accepts his version of reality, he will call it love. He will call it unity. He will call it peace. But it is not peace. It is submission to a lie.

And so, she stands. And because she stands, he hates her for it.
And the children, oh, the children.
They once looked at him with adoration, with trust.

But now they watch him with wary eyes, knowing that love should not look like this. That truth should not be twisted like this. That a father should not call himself Job while casting his own children as his betrayers.

And this, more than anything, wounds him.

But instead of repenting, he retreats deeper into his rage. Because if even his children refuse to worship his pain, then he has nothing left to hold onto.
And so, he writes in his journal. “My breath is offensive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own family, and my children rise against me.”

Not seeing that it is his own hands that have driven them away.     

And if they still do not submit, they must be cast out. He will call them the enemy. He will tell himself they never truly loved him. He will stand over their absence, victorious, convincing himself that his isolation is proof of his suffering, not his choices.
And so, he remains.

Not because he has to. But because to turn back now would mean admitting he was wrong. To turn back now would mean tearing down everything he has built. To turn back now would mean facing the mirror.
And he is not ready. 

Not yet.

          A man who refuses to see the truth must silence those who still speak it. And so, he drives them away. Not because he does not want love, but because love requires truth, and truth threatens him.
He is not alone because he wants to be. He is alone because he has made himself incapable of being truly known.
And perhaps, in the deepest places of his soul, he grieves this.
But he does not know how to stop.

“The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice.” Proverbs 12:15

              He knows the language of God. He once believed in mercy, in transformation, in love. But now, those things are too dangerous. They require surrender, and surrender is unthinkable.

So he does what men like him have always done: he reshapes God in his own image. He takes the words of scripture and sharpens them into daggers. He finds verses that justify his rage, his blame, his vengeance.

If the greatest men of faith suffered, then surely his suffering is not a sign of his wrongdoing, but his righteousness. Surely, he is the one being persecuted. 

And so, he kneels. But not in repentance, but in self-pity. 

He prays. But not for change, but for validation.

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” Isaiah 1:18

         And yet. Even now, the voice of the Lord calls to him. Even now, he is not beyond redemption. Even now, if he would turn, if he would repent, the Father would run to him like the prodigal’s father, arms wide open.

Even now, God has not given up on him. Because Jesus does not despise the lost. He weeps for them.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” Matthew 23:37

        The tragedy is not that God has rejected him. The tragedy is that he is not yet willing to be gathered.
And so, the Saviour still asks: “Do you want to be healed?”

He is not beyond saving.
But he must want to be saved.
And until he does, he will sit in the darkness he has chosen.
Not because he has to.
But because he is not yet ready.
And so, I pray for the day when he is.

“But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.” Micah 7:7

And I know that there is no heart too hard for Him to break, no soul too lost for Him to find, no sinner too far gone for Him to redeem. I wait because I know that my God is mighty to save.

That only He can take this man, this lost and angry man, and make him whole again.

Because my Father is not done. And if the day ever comes when he turns back, when he finally lets go of the chains he has held onto for so long, when he stops clutching his wounds and lifts his hands instead to the God who heals, I will open my hands, lift my eyes to heaven, and whisper the words of the father in the parable:

“This son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” Luke 15:24

And I will rejoice. Because my Father will have won.

Maybe after all this is the only victory worth wanting.