199 - Wonder Upon Wonder’ Isaiah 27-30

 

Three Verses I have thought about for the past three decades.
The default of the Jews was to go to their neighbors if they needed help,
not to their God.
What about me?
I too have run to the arms of flesh for guidance, counsel, support.
May we deeply depend this day on the LORD our God.

In Returning and Rest
In Quietness and Trust
Shall be Your Strength.
Isaiah 30:15

The LORD longs to be gracious to you
He longs to show mercy to you.
He is a God of justice.
Blessed are those who wait for Him, not for any man.
Isaiah 30:18

And though the Lord gives you
the bread of adversity and the water of affliction,
Your teacher will not hide himself anymore.
Your eyes will see Your Teacher.
Your ears will hear a word behind you, saying:
This is the way, walk in it.
When you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.
Isaiah 30:20-21

We will find strength in affliction because You are there.  Help us this day in what you have allowed in your Providential Hand to escape the snares of the enemy of our souls.  Help us this day to find that quietness and rest in You in the midst of this world we live in.

Here it is.  The first verse I read that grabbed me and what I was doing, living, being when I was a mere 21 years old.

“These people come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
is based on merely human rules they have been taught. Isaiah 29:13.

And I turned.  I could no longer live in the human rules.

I could no longer live by the works of my hand.

I can no longer live today by the principle of this land.

Their worship is made up of rules that come from merely humans, yet the Sovereign Lord says: In quietness and trust is your strength. But they wanted none of it. Isa 30:15 Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you. Therefore, He will rise up and show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him. Cry for help. Although He gives you the bread of adversity. Although He gives you the water of affliction, whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, "This is the way; walk in it." Isa 30:21 This chapter has meant more to me over the last three decades. I carry these words daily. Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or seek help from the Lord. Isa 31:1 To Whom or what do I turn this day, this hour? 30:18

Woe to the one

who tells God what to do.

Shall the clay tell the Potter

what to do?  

We have life mixed up..

Paul David Tripp calls it 

Eternity Amnesia.

"Life is a struggle.  The Lord, in His Wisdom, has left us in a fallen world.  But perhaps our struggles are not primarily about the brokenness that surrounds us.  Could it be there is something we bring to each of these struggles that makes them harder to bear?"   www.paultripp.com/articles/posts/your-final-destinatio

PHOTO: A Rabbit Hole.  As we look deep into the holes of our own lives, may we sense Your Presence with us, Your Provision toward us, and Your Bending Low to us.