A Thought

“’In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid My face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you’, says the Lord, Your redeemer.”  Isaiah 54:8

The prophet was speaking to Judah in Exile after they had lost everything, including their homeland.  As much as it might be thought the people of Judah grieved over having lost everything “they” owned, they finally came to realize they had lost everything the Lord had entrusted to them.  They had lost everything because they had forgotten who they are.  The “wrath” of The Lord had overwhelmed them only for a “season”, yet they were assured of The Lord’s “everlasting love”.

We are easily overwhelmed by what seems to be a society living not only in darkness but in utter hopelessness.  If we lacked any sense of hope, would we of the faithful not also likely turn toward the empty promises of the world and seek whatever comfort and pleasure we could find in the moment – having no hope for a future?  

We are assured by the faithful ministry of the prophet that there are indeed “seasons” in which The Lord may hide His face from us (such as when we try in vain to hide from Him), but we are also assured that a new season is upon those who turn to the Lord, who “seek The Lord while He may be found”, who “call upon Him while He is near” (Isaiah 55:6).  There can be – and must be – “wrath for a moment” when we get a little too full of ourselves; for without these moments we may never turn back to the One who is everlasting and Whose love is everlasting.  We must never “regard lightly the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when you are punished by Him; for the Lord disciplines those whom He loves, and chastises every child whom He accepts” (Hebrews 12:6, from Proverb 3:11-12).

The devil isn’t out to get us when things don’t go the way we want them to go; rather it might be more accurate, at least in this context, to say that the “way we want” is not the way The Lord intends for those whom He calls His own.  In the end, it is all going to work out how The Lord intends it to work out.  This is His everlasting promise; this is His everlasting love!

Blessings,

Michael