“Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth” (Genesis 10:8).

There are people who are born to oppose God. They are always warring against Him. I personally feel they are more rebellious than those who simply ignore the divine existence. These last people can even suffer an enormous emptiness in their lives, but they continue to walk the streets of this world in their loneliness without knowing, without understanding, or even, without wanting to have a meeting with God.

Not the first. The first, like Nimrod, stand on the front sidewalk and shout. They defy. They try to wound some heart (perhaps ours). I cannot call them “atheists” because they deny the existence of a heavenly Being. The “Nimrods,” ancient as well as modern, know that He exists; in some cases, they even know the will He has for them, but they decide to build their Towers of Babel to get to heaven, openly challenging the divine command.

It is possible that when you look in the mirror, you cannot see yourself as a builder of Towers of Babel. However, (this word always comes up), how many times have you found yourself placing the bricks of some small “shack” to hang on to your sin?

The Tower of Babel is the open, clear, and irreverent challenge to God. Our shacks are more hidden, not as obvious, and even have the appearance of spirituality, but down deep, we are in the same situation: we are doing what God said we should not do.

Challenging God does not mean that we are necessarily going to get drunk every weekend, rob a bank, or kill someone. We challenge Him in “smaller” things: a lie, forbidden food, a little gossip.

The big problem is that the “divine proportions” are different from ours. While we “proportionally” reject people because of their sins (the greater, more serious, or scandalous the sin, the further away from them we want to be), God goes about things from a different viewpoint: He rejects sin, no matter how “big” or “small” it may be but He loves the sinner. He does not stop giving opportunities for eternal salvation to the builders of Towers of Babel who repent, but there is no option for the builders of small “shacks” who continue practicing their tiny beloved sins.

You know, it is not a matter of size, but a matter of doing (or not doing) what God desires and commands.