The Story You’ve Been Telling Yourself
Day 1: Unseen: Matthew 11:25-27
Introduction
You’ve probably never said the words out loud. But somewhere along the way, without really deciding to, you became the center of your own universe.
Not in a villainous way. Just quietly. Gradually. The way the sun rises — you don’t notice it happening, and then suddenly everything is lit differently and you wonder how it got so bright.
Most of us operate from a working assumption that goes something like this: the world I can see, touch, measure, and manage is the world that matters most. What’s real is what’s in front of me. What counts is what I can control. And if there’s a God somewhere out there — well, He fits somewhere in the margins of the life I’m already running.
This devotional series begins with an invitation. Not an argument. Not a demand. Just this: What if you’ve been living in a smaller story than the one you were made for?
Jesus came to pull back the curtain. And what’s behind it will change everything.
Scripture
At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.
“All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
— Matthew 11:25-27 (NIV)
Reflection
What Just Happened Here
Jesus is praying out loud, and what He says stops everything.
He isn’t describing God as a distant architect who set the universe in motion and stepped back. He’s describing a Father — intimate, present, pleased. A Father who hides things not to frustrate us, but to protect the discovery for those who come with open hands rather than clenched fists.
And then Jesus says something that should land like a stone in still water: no one knows the Father except the Son — and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.
This is not religious small talk. This is a claim that rewires everything. There is a God. He is knowable. And the only way to know Him is through Jesus.
We Have Been Living on Assumptions
Here’s what’s worth sitting with today: most of us have formed our picture of God — if we have one at all — from a hundred secondhand sources. Parents. Disappointments. Church experiences that helped or hurt. Movies. The vague spiritual feeling on a mountaintop that faded by the next morning.
We have opinions about God the way we have opinions about countries we’ve never visited. Confident. Mostly wrong.
Jesus is saying something different. He’s saying: I know Him. I came from Him. And I can show you who He actually is.
Not the God of your assumptions. Not the God of your wounds. Not the small, manageable God who exists to approve your decisions. The real one. The Father. Lord of heaven and earth.
That’s not a threat. That’s the most liberating thing you’ll hear all week.
Because if there is a God — a real one, a Father — then you were never meant to carry what you’ve been carrying. You were never meant to be the one who holds it all together. You were made to be known by Him, not to manage Him.
Grace Note
“No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in the Father’s embrace, has made him known.” — John 1:18 (NIV)
Jesus didn’t come to give you a religion. He came to introduce you to a Father. The God who was invisible, unknowable, beyond reach — Jesus made Him known. That’s why He came. That’s what He does. And He is still doing it.
Prayer Prompt
Jesus, I’ll be honest — I’m not sure what I believe about God. Or maybe I think I know, but I’m starting to wonder if what I believe is more about my experience than about who He actually is.
I want to see clearly. I want to know what’s real. So I’m asking You — the one who came from the Father, who knows Him fully — show me who He is. Pull back the curtain, even a little. I’m willing to look.
I don’t come with all the right words or all the right answers. But You said You reveal the Father to those You choose — and I’m asking to be one of them.
Amen.
Response
1. Name Your Assumption: Take five minutes and write down your honest, working picture of God. Not what you’re supposed to believe — what you actually assume. Is He distant? Disappointed in you? Indifferent? Demanding? Write it without editing yourself.
2. Read It Again, Slowly: Go back and read Matthew 11:25-27 one more time — but this time, read it as if Jesus is saying it directly to you. Let the word Father land. Don’t rush past it.
3. Open the Curtain an Inch: Tell one person today that you’re starting this devotional series. You don’t have to have it figured out. Just say: I’m trying to see something I might have been missing. Saying it out loud makes it real.
To read all the posts in this devotional series, visit: [Unseen]
© Steve Peschke / This Is The Way