“But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

~ First Samuel 16.7

God is not colorblind; to use the language is to put God on the level of race and under the lens of race.  Instead, we have lost sight of the argument of race.  It is not that God ignores what we see but that race asks us to see something that it not there and for a purpose that is of no interest to God, that is, power, seeing as though all power belongs to God (Psalm 62.11)).  Race is a magician, changing people into races and making their bodies the competition and the enemy.  But, we are not God’s enemy; Satan is: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6.12).

We know that there are no physically black/ white/ red/ yellow/ brown/ beige people.  These are social colors not skin colors.  These are societal designations, racial categories that go farther back than we care to consider.  The truth is that we are not interested in knowing or seeing who we really are.  We would much rather focus on the outward appearance than to look at the condition of our hearts.  It is not God who is blind but us and willfully so.  We are trying to see social colors and God is looking at our character, at our heart.

People do not come in colors or shades.  We do not come in boxes, prepackaged and labeled according to our external appearance.  We get into them.  We close ourselves up and off with them.

This is not how God created us and it is not how God sees us.  We are not all God’s colors but all God’s children.  Race is not the lens through which we are seen or understood by the Divine.  God’s purpose for creating us was not racial but relational.

Not only are God’s ways not our ways but God’s vision is not comparable to our sight.  His vision is eternal not temporal, spiritual not carnal, real not an illusion.  Also, God’s values are not our own.  God is not influenced by time, money, position, appearance, ambition or prejudice– racial or any other.  Because it is not the flesh that God is after.  God wants to save our souls– not our races.

It is race that is short-sighted.  God sees us as we truly are and the social coloring of skin has nothing to do with it.