Consider the Rock

 

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Isaiah 51:1-3

“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 4^th 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

If the “virus culture” of this moment has you a little (or a lot) depressed or bewildered, don’t let the mud puddle claim another victim; just lift your head to look at the rock from which you were cut!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO                                                                                                                  

Title Image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For other posts on God’s Promises see After the Storm – Part 2 and Why God Got Some Ink

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[1] Zechariah 2:8

[2] Genesis 1:28

After the Storm - Part 2

[i]

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Then God told Noah and his sons, “I hereby confirm my covenant with you and your descendants, and with all the animals that were on the boat with you—the birds, the livestock, and all the wild animals—every living creature on earth.  Yes, I am confirming my covenant with you. Never again will floodwaters kill all living creatures; never again will a flood destroy the earth.”  Then God said, “I am giving you a sign of my covenant with you and with all living creatures, for all generations to come.  I have placed my rainbow in the clouds.  It is the sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth.                Genesis 9:8-13^(NLT)

I watched a movie last night about the USS Indianapolis.  In 1945 the ship carried the atomic bomb to its staging area in the Philippines, later to be dropped on Hiroshima.  On its return voyage to the states it was torpedoed and sunk.  The crew numbered nearly twelve hundred, 300 of which immediately went down with the ship.  Another nearly 500 either drowned or were eaten by sharks in the 5 days it took before rescue ships arrived.  The movie was graphic, and the violence portrayals were more than disturbing.

Rewind to Noah on the ark.  Having just seen the worst destruction ever in the history of mankind I think it is safe to say Noah was probably a little hesitant about leaving the ark. 

That floating warehouse and zoo had been the place of safety for over a year.  Inside was dark, smelly and safe; outside had been the scary, violent unknown.   If I had been Noah, when God said:  OK, it’s time to leave your little boat, I believe I would have tried to pull the covers back over my head, and meekly whine:  That’s OK, I’m good here; I’ll just stay inside a little longer, if you don’t mind.

It’s scary to venture where you’ve never been, or where you’ve been hurt before.  Noah and family had probably been scared half to death by what they’d seen and experienced in the storm that howled and pitched their boat like a twig in a tornado. 

The men of the USS Indianapolis were adrift for 5 days, and more than a few of them became delusional in the face of little hope being rescued.  Noah and family had little hope that there was going to be anything in their future but water and this rocking barge that stank from a year’s worth of life with animals in a small place.  I can imagine Noah’s sons asking:  Dad, are we there yet?

But eventually the waters receded, the land dried-up, and the Lord made a covenant with Noah’s family, which even included the animals:  Never Again!  To seal the deal, God signed this covenant with His multi-colored signature across the entire sky – the rainbow of God’s promise. 

God said this would be a forever reality, and even though we see floods sporadically, with loss of life and property, God’s promise has been true that there has never been another flood to wipe all humans off the face of this earth.

The storms come and go; God’s promise stands.

For You Today

Listen once again:

Then God told Noah and his sons, “I hereby confirm my covenant with you and your descendants…. Genesis 9:8

Are you one of Noah’s descendants?  Well, unless you’re a chimpanzee or a platypus, the answer is “yes”.  So you’re included as a beneficiary of God’s promise to never again destroy the earth. 

What other of God’s promises can you think of that have your name written on them?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

NOTES

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[i] Title image: Erik Christensen, via Wikimedia Commons

After the Storm

[i]

Monday, November 28, 2016

But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the boat.  He sent a wind to blow across the earth, and the floodwaters began to recede.  The underground waters stopped flowing, and the torrential rains from the sky were stopped.  So the floodwaters gradually receded from the earth.  After 150 days, exactly five months from the time the flood began, the boat came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.  Two and a half months later, as the waters continued to go down, other mountain peaks became visible.    After another forty days, Noah opened the window he had made in the boat and released a raven.  The bird flew back and forth until the floodwaters on the earth had dried up.  He also released a dove to see if the water had receded and it could find dry ground.  But the dove could find no place to land because the water still covered the ground.  So it returned to the boat, and Noah held out his hand and drew the dove back inside.  After waiting another seven days, Noah released the dove again.  This time the dove returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak.  Then Noah knew that the floodwaters were almost gone.  He waited another seven days and then released the dove again.  This time it did not come back.  Noah was now 601 years old.  On the first day of the new year, ten and a half months after the flood began, the floodwaters had almost dried up from the earth.  Noah lifted back the covering of the boat and saw that the surface of the ground was drying.  Two more months went by, and at last the earth was dry!  Then God said to Noah, “Leave the boat, all of you—you and your wife, and your sons and their wives.  Release all the animals—the birds, the livestock, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—so they can be fruitful and multiply throughout the earth.”  So Noah, his wife, and his sons and their wives left the boat.  And all of the large and small animals and birds came out of the boat, pair by pair.  Genesis 8:1-19^(NLT)

Most pictures I’ve ever seen depicting Noah and his family leaving the ark show them stepping back into Eden.  There’s always a beautiful rainbow in the sky and the earth is covered with flowers and beautiful trees and grass; it’s perfectly lovely, even the animals have smiles on their faces.

How naïve!  This had been the mother of all storms!  The earth had been wrecked, and the evidence of death and debris must have been overwhelming.  The damage from the 2005 Indonesian tsunami would be mild compared to what Noah’s family was facing.

In Genesis 7 we learn that the storm was relatively short – just 40 days of torrential rain, and the waters bursting up from the ground destroying everything.  But it took Noah 7½ more months to open the window and peek-out!  Even then he could only see mountain peaks sticking out of the water.  It took nearly 5 more months for the ground to dry-up.  Finally God told Noah to leave the ark and begin this new beginning.

There is a pattern here that is useful for us when we face our storms of loss.  God gave Noah and his family many months of darkness to remember the cost of how his generation had forsaken God and made the culture a stench in God’s nostrils.

He also gave them months after the storm, and before the floodwaters receded, to contemplate what they would do when, and if, they could return to a more normal existence.

The pattern is evident:  the bigger the storm, the longer the process of recovery.

When we experience loss the recovery process is somewhat different for each person, because we see things differently, and react according to our personality and culture.  But the mainframe of recovery operates on the scale of time for everybody.  All the losses of life include a time for reflection on what (or who) has been lost, and a time of contemplation about how life will make sense after the storm has passed.  And then there is that time when, if you are listening, you will hear God say… now leave this behind – go and be fruitful.

For You Today

If you’re not going through the storm, or plodding through the aftermath’s destruction, just tuck these little thoughts away.  You’ll need them someday. 

If you are dealing with a loss, keep trucking…keep releasing ravens and doves…keep listening…the storm happened…but the waters aren’t forever. 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

NOTES

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[i] Title image: AusAID [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons