“Listen to me, all who hope for deliverance—all who seek the Lord! Consider the rock from which you were cut, the quarry from which you were mined. Yes, think about Abraham, your ancestor, and Sarah, who gave birth to your nation. Abraham was only one man when I called him. But when I blessed him, he became a great nation.” The Lord will comfort Israel again and have pity on her ruins. Her desert will blossom like Eden, her barren wilderness like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found there. Songs of thanksgiving will fill the air.
Remembering from whence we came is, at once, the greatest blessing and bane humans enjoy and endure. When we recall our sinfulness, willful and
self-destructive, we must endure its shame.
When we recall our humble entrance into this world, small, and totally
dependant on the kindness of our parents, we gain the perspective of dust;
lowly we began, and we are bound for it again.
God points out to the enslaved
nation of Israel, losers in war and captives again, that both their sin and
their Savior are attached together. The God
who used Israel’s enemy to awaken them to their sinful ways would also be their
Savior, bringing greatness out of brokenness, once again.
This is a thought that occupies my
mind and soul these days. And not just for
America; we are only a few days away from the July 4th anniversary
of our nation’s birthday, but this is not patriotic nationalism. This is about humanity’s survival.
God’s promises are at least two
things:
1. They are certain…what God promises,
God brings to pass
2. They are misunderstood, and
misrepresented…just turn on the TV and see the commercials during religious
programming.
Isaiah says God promises joy that
will replace the ruins of a disgraced superpower. In so-doing the prophet invites the beleagured
nation to consider
the rock from which they were cut; he holds up their humble beginnings for examination.
It was to an old couples’ childless
vacuum God promised an heir, the firstborn of a nation, to be numbered as the
grains of sand on the beaches. To Sarah,
90 years old, and her 100 year old husband, Abraham, there was given a birth,
and beginning of fulfillment. What was
once the emptiness of no evidence of God’s promised blessing, is now breathing,
cooing, nursing, and filling diapers in a geriatric couple’s tent. Amazement, laughter, and joy have replaced
sad resignation. Singing and dancing are
the new order of the day. Humble beginnings
in Abraham’s tent now shows the flower of spring in the garden of hope.
But, it also began a rough
ride.
Abraham’s family has known what
every other family on earth has experienced, treachery, jealousy, hypocrisy, poverty,
oppression, tears, joy, singing, parched times, and good. And, eventually, the fruit of God’s promise
came to a cradle in Bethlehem, born a child with no earthly father, but
nonetheless a part of Abraham’s lineage.
This is the centerpiece of God’s creation, understood from before the
foundation of the universe, that the promise of restoration is carved from the
bedrock of Yahweh’s strength.
And, here we are, muddled in such
deep and abstruse mysteries, such as whether or not to wear a face mask in
WalMart. And we have deep pain over the
shortage of toilet paper. And on, and
on, ad nauseum. We are drowning in the
proverbial puddle of plague-concern at the moment, with all sense of normalcy on-hold, except for the incessant
droning of the news channels counting the dead.
All this…and it is substantial…is
momentary. God is forever; and we have
been mined from His
quarry, not some primordial pond of protoezoa. We are made in His image, and,
blurred and muddied as that image is in 2020, we remain the apple of His eye[1], His
crown of creation[2], and as much as we might feel as depressed and forgotten as Abraham and
Sarah, the promises of God never fail.
Let’s
Pray Together:
Father, we are thankful that the promise of Your word will never return to You unaccomplished. What You set out to do is already done. Prime our faith to receive this truth, we pray, in the name of Your holy child, Jesus.
For You Today
You
chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.
Have a blessed day!
For
other posts on God’s Promises see After
the Storm – Part 2 and Why
God Got Some Ink
