Isolated. Lonely. Seeming abandoned by God and really feeling it.
They were exiled far from home, amongst strangers, virtually enslaved and locked down.
The Israelites Isaiah is talking to had been carried away as exiles into a foreign land and they just COULDN'T UNDERSTAND why on earth their God had ALLOWED it.
More than that, He hadn't just ALLOWED it ... He DID IT to them, but He did it to them because they had rebelled (to their great shame and their painful cost) against Him.
They hadn't just been worshipping their man-made idols. In the practice of their idolatry they'd been exploiting one another sexually and even sacrificing their children in their fires.
They fell to feeling abandoned by God ...
And there was a VERY good reason for them feeling like that.
They behaved so badly God didn't want anything much to do with them ... and we've all had people like that in OUR lives, right?
But then God started to signal to Isaiah, their main-man prophet, that now they realised where they'd be without the One they'd abandoned, God Himself was now turning the tide:
"Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins."
Isaiah 40:1
In spite of all that, still the people were doubting and fearful.
It's understandable, they'd had a really scary and challenging time.
So God started (through His prophet Isaiah) to set about the business of rebuilding their confidence.
Rebuilding His broken people's confidence
He started (Isaiah 40:3) to speak to them about the coming of His promised Messiah, and the construction of the new Way of the Lord ... a highway He'd build through humanity's man-made spiritual desert.
He started speaking to them about
- the power and
- the Heart of
- the coming Shepherd
- Who would lead His people through the desert
- along His new Way.
"Like a shepherd He tends His flock;
He gathers up the lambs with His arm;
He carries them close to His heart;
He leads the ewes along."
Isaiah 40:11
The confidence-building messages made succinct
Then when he'd built up the people's confidence in the power and the intentions of their God, Isaiah was inspired to sum it all up for the people in the words of our verse for today ...
The point
God is engaged actively and lovingly with His people, so when things are puzzling, there's always a point to it ... but finding out what that point is immediately really just ISN'T always the answer.
For those days when things are hard and God seems to have abandoned or forgotten us (or turned away His face altogether) a return to known facts and revealed truth is what's really needed ... not a pre-occupation with unknown facts and human imaginings.
Isaiah takes the people back to this:
- God IS the One mighty enough to save us whatever the complexity of our situation
- and His heart towards His people is well-known
- Yes, things can get very tough indeed in our experience - particularly when we've turned away from Him - but turning further away at those times very simply ain't gonna fix it!
- Supremely God has acted by sending His Son (as Isaiah prophesied at least seven hundred years beforehand)
- He's done that to sort out His people's sin and lead His flock through the desert of human experience following His way
- HIS way is to lead and look after His people
- Our part is not to block His high road, which He's built for us, but to walk with the Lord on His Way
The takeaway
Today's takeaway is quite simply this.
Yes, life gets hard and perplexing, but God the powerful and the caring has built His Way ... His way through the desert we've created by living without Him as our Shepherd.
We've heard Jesus teach us life on the Way, so take away this.
Whatever is causing you grief today make sure you don't get IN the Way of His Way, but get (and be sure to stay) ON it.
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