When We Want God to Fix it All

When We Want God to Fix it All

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
    so that the mountains would quake at your presence—
as when fire kindles brushwood
    and the fire causes water to boil—
to make your name known to your adversaries,
    so that the nations might tremble at your presence!
When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect,
    you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
From ages past no one has heard,
    no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
    who works for those who wait for him.

Isaiah 64:1-4

Don’t you sometimes want God to rip open the heavens and just come down and fix it all? Fix what’s going on in my life, in me. Fix what’s going on in our world, the brokenness all around us.

In this text we hear Isaiah’s heart cry for God to rend the heavens, to tear them open and enter the story, to change the game. Isaiah wants it to be dramatic too - mountains to quake and fire to break out, that God’s enemies would tremble at God’s presence.  Just like in days of old, not like the quiet of Isaiah’s “now”. Isaiah wants God to intervene. 

Sometimes I feel the same way - O God, come and fix it all. Stop the heat waves, the fires. Stop the seas rising, the land clearing, the destruction. Stop the fighting. Stop the strong ones harming the weak. Stop the powerful taking it all. O God that you would tear open the heavens and come down, that you would put things right, that your justice would flow.

Yet Isaiah trusts that God works for those who wait for him. 

We’ve marked Advent. We’ve been sitting in this time of waiting, mirroring the waiting of those of old, hungering for God to tear open the heavens. 

While our task remains -  to wait, to long, and to hope - we do so as people transformed: washed clean, grounded in knowledge, strengthened with confidence, and empowered by the Spirit. And we do so with rejoicing because God has come to be with us. Love has broken through!

God has heard Isaiah’s cry, my cry, and the cries of so many human hearts. God has indeed broken through the barrier of the heavens and come down. And yet when God did, it was as a baby, in a remote province, of an oppressed people, in the quiet of night.

While dramatic it may not have been, what is most startling is the fact that God doesn’t come to simply fix or act upon the earth. But he gives of himself, he enters in, as “God with us”. His way of fixing, of breaking through, of changing, of intervening – is to give us of himself. 

I find this poem by Saint Augustine of Hippo* brings alive for me the shockingly generous gift that God gives:

Man's maker was made man that He,

Ruler of the stars, 

might nurse at His mother's breast; 

that the Bread might hunger, 

the Fountain thirst, 

the Light sleep, 

the Way be tired on its journey; 

that Truth might be accused of false witnesses, 

the Teacher be beaten with whips, 

the Foundation be suspended on wood; 

that Strength might grow weak; 

that the Healer might be wounded; 

that Life might die. 

― Saint Augustine of Hippo 

May we receive him. May we know that we are not alone. May we wait and hope and trust that one day justice will flow in full, that God will make all things new. And may we live like Jesus, giving of ourselves, trusting that this is the way God breaks through. 

Jessica Carroll Smith is a Co-Founder of Common Grace and currently works as the Common Grace Strategic Implementation Lead. Jess has particular skills in turning ideas into action, and she supports the Common Grace team with goal setting and strategy implementation. Jess is also the Development Coach at Anglican Deaconess Ministries, a Research Consultant with Rooftop Social and she works freelance as a Project Coach. When not working, Jess loves riding her bike round Sydney’s cycleways, swimming and jigsaw puzzling with her high school aged children. Jess is married to Byron, they attend Northside Baptist Church and live on Gadigal land.

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Notes: Artwork 'Rend the Heavens' (2017) by Jessica Carroll Smith

*Apologies for the gender exclusive language of Saint Augustine of Hippo from 354-430 AD

This devotional is the twenty-fourth in a series of daily email devotionals for Advent 2025 reflecting on the realities of our broken world along with the unshakable hope that love still breaks through. It explores how God’s love disrupts, heals, and transforms—breaking through darkness, despair, and injustice to bring light, joy, and renewal.

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Common Grace is a diverse movement of individuals, churches and communities passionate about Jesus and justice. We have come together as those from different Christian traditions who stand in the continuity of the historic Christian faith, centred on the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ as witnessed to in holy scripture. This series highlights the diversity of followers of Jesus across these lands. These voices may not agree with one another (or with you), but they are each an expression of longing for the God whose love we see break through in Jesus.

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