If you don't take your stand in faith, you won't have a leg to stand on. (Isaiah 7:9, MSG)
Hmm. I read chapters 3-4 and couldn't find anything to write about. Today is overflowing with wonderful truths, so many that I had a hard time deciding. That says more about where I was on Thursday than about God's Word.
Although chapters 7-8 include separate prophecies, they all reflect on the truth of standing in faith. Foundational truths of why and how we take that stand.
How about--When all is said and done, the last word is Immanuel--God-With-Us. (Isaiah 8:10, MSG).
How fitting that "the" Word (in John 1) has the "last word." After all debates end and all wars cease, He will still be standing. He is the foundation, the rock on which I stand. Sing it with me. "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ, the solid rock, I stand. All other ground is sinking sand." Oh, and what is Jesus's name? Yup. Immanuel, God with us.
Take these words to heart: If you're going to worry, worry about the Holy. Fear God-of-the-Angel-Armies. The Holy can be either a Hiding Place or a Boulder blocking your way." (Isaiah 7:12-14, MSG) What a great picture of "fear God". He is either the place to which I run when I am afraid (Oh, Corrie Ten Boom and The Hiding Place). Or else He is the thing that I fear. He places a boulder that I can't climb on and when things go far enough, the boulder can smash. Strong, hard, immoveable--all I want my defender to be, all I don't want in my opposition.
The last verse that stood out to me is one of those "I wish this wasn't true" passages. It talks about the times God "remains in hiding." If you want a great book on the subject, try Seeking God's Hidden Face by Cecil Murphey. Thursday I felt a hint of that, when I read God's Word and it felt dead, not the living organism that I have encountered over and over again during this nibble experiment. If God seems silent--it doesn't always mean something is wrong. Isaiah gives us the only answer to a time of silence: While I am waiting, I continue to hope. I don't give up on Him.
Take your stand on faith.
Stand your ground and hope.
They both say the same thing.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Friday, September 27, 2013
LIFE FROM DEATH
**A quick note: I have been fighting a bad cold recently. Sorry to have missed the remainder of the Wisdom books but we jump back in with the prophets.**
The country will look like pine and oak forest with every tree cut down--Every tree a stump, a huge field of stumps. But there's a holy seed in those stumps. (Isaiah 6:13, MSG)
Today the social worker at the nursing home asked me for the most special moment of my life.
The question made me think of what accomplishments could I celebrate? And the answer is--very few. My accomplishment has come in surviving a difficult life.
(My answer? The birth of my granddaughter nine months after my daughter's death, and the publication of my first book.)
When I read about the "huge field of stumps," I thought about that conversation. If all of my dreams pictured trees reaching to the sky, what remains are stumps. My family--stripped of my till-death husband and one of my two children. Music--not a career and now no longer a ministry. Writing--a tree, perhaps, but more like a seedling than a tree in California's Redwood Forest.
Dreams stunted by health and events and age.
But that isn't the final word.
God tells Isaiah that He is going to empty Israel. That even if a tenth is left, those will be removed as well--leaving stumps out of what was once a great forest.
But in those stumps--a holy seed rests. The stumps aren't dead. Out of their death, a new life grows.
Kind of like Jordan's birth, and then Isaiah. Jordan, born a full pregnancy after Jolene's death. Isaiah, born seven months after my mother passed away.
A seed, ready to fall into the ground, to grow to fullness. Kind of like The Lion King's circle of life.
Another reminder of God's grace. God's holy seed rests in me, ready to sprout to new growth. My roots will grow deeper in him. My trunk will grow taller--stronger, and more like Christ. My branches will spread outward, to other people. There will be fruit ready for picking for others. They will grow strong--and in term, a new holy seed is planted in them.
The circles will continue to ripple through death and beyond.
Amen.
The country will look like pine and oak forest with every tree cut down--Every tree a stump, a huge field of stumps. But there's a holy seed in those stumps. (Isaiah 6:13, MSG)
Today the social worker at the nursing home asked me for the most special moment of my life.
The question made me think of what accomplishments could I celebrate? And the answer is--very few. My accomplishment has come in surviving a difficult life.
(My answer? The birth of my granddaughter nine months after my daughter's death, and the publication of my first book.)
When I read about the "huge field of stumps," I thought about that conversation. If all of my dreams pictured trees reaching to the sky, what remains are stumps. My family--stripped of my till-death husband and one of my two children. Music--not a career and now no longer a ministry. Writing--a tree, perhaps, but more like a seedling than a tree in California's Redwood Forest.
Dreams stunted by health and events and age.
But that isn't the final word.
God tells Isaiah that He is going to empty Israel. That even if a tenth is left, those will be removed as well--leaving stumps out of what was once a great forest.
But in those stumps--a holy seed rests. The stumps aren't dead. Out of their death, a new life grows.
Kind of like Jordan's birth, and then Isaiah. Jordan, born a full pregnancy after Jolene's death. Isaiah, born seven months after my mother passed away.
A seed, ready to fall into the ground, to grow to fullness. Kind of like The Lion King's circle of life.
Another reminder of God's grace. God's holy seed rests in me, ready to sprout to new growth. My roots will grow deeper in him. My trunk will grow taller--stronger, and more like Christ. My branches will spread outward, to other people. There will be fruit ready for picking for others. They will grow strong--and in term, a new holy seed is planted in them.
The circles will continue to ripple through death and beyond.
Amen.
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