Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Why God Got Some Ink

Wednesday, December 28, 2016
See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands.  Always in my mind is a picture of Jerusalem’s walls in ruins.  Soon your descendants will come back, and all who are trying to destroy you will go away.  Look around you and see, for all your children will come back to you.  As surely as I live,” says the Lord, “they will be like jewels or bridal ornaments for you to display.  “Even the most desolate parts of your abandoned land will soon be crowded with your people.  Your enemies who enslaved you
will be far away.  The generations born in exile will return and say, ‘We need more room!  It’s crowded here!’  Then you will think to yourself, ‘Who has given me all these descendants?  For most of my children were killed, and the rest were carried away into exile.  I was left here all alone.  Where did all these people come from?  Who bore these children?  Who raised them for me?’”  This is what the Sovereign Lord says:  “See, I will give a signal to the godless nations.  They will carry your little sons back to you in their arms; they will bring your daughters on their shoulders.  Kings and queens will serve you and care for all your needs.  They will bow to the earth before you and lick the dust from your feet.  Then you will know that I am the Lord.  Those who trust in me will never be put to shame.”   Isaiah 49:16-23(NLT)
The prophet Isaiah’s voice was mostly intended for a troubled nation caught in a downward spiral.  Their national sin was immense; the nation formed in the heart of a loving and holy God had become a stench in His nostrils.  Judgment was already on the way; their destruction was imminent and their children would soon be carried away by their enemies.  Disaster was their future!
Then God decided in favor of tattoos!  Really! 
Well, I’m not sure that it’s a blanket endorsement to cover your body with ink; it’s more an artistic way to say that God’s thoughts are open and on display for anyone willing to see.
Isaiah records that God wrote the name of His beloved Israel on the palms of His hands as a visually constant promise that not only would the children return, brought by their penitent and now-submissive enemies, the day would come when Israel would flourish again when God once more would place Himself undeniably back in Israel’s focus.
An insurance company has the slogan:  The future belongs to those who prepare for it.[ii]  God’s slogan, tattooed by God Himself on His palms (long before that insurance company): 
The future belongs to those who trust in Me

For You Today

Whatever you’ve got going on in your life that’s making the future so uncertain you can hardly concentrate on the present…well, that may be God getting your attention.
A bit of advice…give Him your attention.
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!
NOTES

[i] Title image: By Meena Kadri from Global Roaming (Vibrantly Rabari), via Wikimedia Commons
[ii] ©The Prudential, Newark N.J.

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