God says, “Rebuild the road!
Clear away the rocks and stones so my people can return from captivity.”
The high and lofty
one who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says this: “I live in the high and holy place with those
whose spirits are contrite and humble. I
restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with
repentant hearts. For I will not fight
against you forever; I will not always be angry. If I were, all people would pass away—all the
souls I have made. I was
angry, so I punished these greedy people.
I withdrew
from them, but they kept going on their own stubborn way. I have seen what they do, but I will
heal them anyway! I will lead them. I will comfort those who mourn, bringing
words of praise to their lips. May they
have abundant peace, both near and far,” says the Lord, who heals them. “But those who still reject me are like
the restless sea, which is never still but continually churns up mud and dirt. There is no peace for the wicked,” says
my God. Isaiah 57:14-21
The prophet reaches into the psyche of every wanderer; thoughts of home seep
into every waking moment of silence. This
part of Isaiah’s comforting word to God’s people, in captivity because they
strayed from God’s ways, opens the possibility of return. It’s a rough road home, but God is the one
with peace for the troubled soul at the end of the journey.
Grasping the surreal possibility of being able to come home, after rejecting God, may not
be easy to accept. However, the only
other alternative is the way the passage ends…no peace for the
wicked! The Father says you must come home!
Passages in Scripture like this one, and the Prodigal Son, the forgiveness
of the thief on the cross next to Jesus, and many others, are so precious,
offering hope to those who have strayed from their Creator. They are precious because they reveal the
heart of God, which is love that desires the best for each of us.
In many lives, that central, loving heart of God’s may take many years to
get through the hard exterior life tends to build around our own hearts. But God’s love is tough, and relentless, and
impervious to our foolish ways. And when
the weary, wandering soul finally arrives at nowhere else to go, the rough road of humble repentance
only requires one small step.
And that one, contrite step towards God is all that’s required to have the
floodgate of peace opened.
For You Today
You may have travelled
the highways of life that seemed easier and much more suitable to bring you
what you wanted, and been successful, or a dismal failure. Either way, if you’re reading this far, you’ve
also no doubt discovered rejecting God’s way has been emptiness of the
soul. The missing piece is like the
dangling carrot in front of the mule pulling the cart….he’s never going to
reach it, just like peace will always be just out of reach for you. Time to rebuild the road home?
Hear one more time
what the rebuilt road home looks like in your life:
The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One,
says this: “I live in the high and holy
place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble. I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and
revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.
Restoration and
reviving…it’s worth the trip, no matter how rough the repair job gets on the
road back home.
There
are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library. To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some
of these:
Resting in Peace and Two Billion
[1] Images: Pixabay.com Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
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