Day 210 — Isaiah 54 – 58

Again I want to caution you that the promises given in Isaiah may not be given to us (their contexts must be understood!), and therefore cannot be claimed by us; but we can understand God’s ways through them and ask Him for the same that He has pledged to His Old Testament people.

Knowing Israel’s great suffering throughout its history, it’s unbelievable that God would call His abandonment of them a “brief moment.” But He makes the same reference to our “light and momentary troubles” in the New Testament. We are bound by time and lack the perspective God has. When He refers to their (and our!) sufferings as momentary, He is speaking relatively. That should cause us to understand our own lack of perspective, and anticipate the “eternal glory that far outweighs” the troubles. Can you trust Him in this, and choose to endure the troubles, allowing Him to accomplish through them what He desires? The suffering will have been fleeting in comparison to His everlasting compassion and kindness, and His unfailing love.

God doesn’t just want to satisfy the thirsty (remember what the imagery means?) with water, but with something better, with things that denote more than survival and satisfaction of needs. He wants to delight our souls with good things and with living in abundance. We need to understand what God has in mind for our salvation, because His thoughts are so much higher than our thoughts. We don’t think big enough when we consider what salvation means. Does your soul delight in His good things? He’s not speaking about the physical, but the spiritual. If you don’t delight in the “richest of fare” He intends for you be enjoying, you are not experiencing the good things He intends for you.

One of the ways God describes the salvation He intends us to have is, “And I will heal them.” What kind of healing do you need today? Think big. Maybe it’s some wound you’ve lived with so long that you’ve come to accept that this is the way it is. Or has the wound become such a part of you that you don’t see it as a wound, but a normal part of who you are? I recommend that we all take the opportunity this reading provides to talk with God about what needs healed in us. He is the one who does the healing, and so we need to seek for Him to do that in us.