March 11, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“‘See, it is I who created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame and forges a weapon fit for its work.

It is I who have created the destroyer to wreak havoc. No weapon forged against you will prevail.

You will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and this is their vindication from Me,’ declares the Lord.” (Isaiah 54.16-17)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

Do you remember both the fragility and resilience of your childhood? That time when a word from your mom or dad would crush you in disappointment. The expression of how hurt they were when you said or did something that was in disobedience intentionally or unintentionally to the standard they had established. There was some form of discipline meted out the worst of which was, at least for the moment, to suffer in silence in “time out.” And we survived it. Hopefully we also learned from it and strove to never do that again. We probably did it again and as we grew older, we chalked up such parenting to “guilt tripping” and inconsequential. We may have even, as I did, played it back when our parents “disappointed us” and attempted to send them to “time out.” It probably didn’t work out too well and our relationship stepped up to a new level of identity and accountability. I hear the echo of this life event wrapping itself around the verses for today’s reflection of God’s Word to Isaiah. Was Isaiah every disobedient to God the Father? Did he act out against the expectation of obedience? We know early on in the days of grief which followed the death of King Uzziah, a question arose of accountability. Isaiah had entered into the Temple to offer prayers for himself and the nation of Israel. He had entered with the mindset of emptiness and loss. Such times in my own life, and perhaps yours, were rendered mundane and without expectation. The feeling of abandonment, loss and doubt numbed the reason and dulled the ability to reason rationally. It was in that kind of moment that Isaiah just went through the motions. It was in that kind of moment that Isaiah was confronted with the reality of God. God wasn’t just “in” that place. He was “high and lifted up with the train of His robe filling the Temple.” God wasn’t just “in” that place as an ethereal presence. He called out to Isaiah and joined him in lament sharing the grief of a nation and for a people. It wasn’t just Isaiah who was feeling the lostness of grief with a king’s death, it was a nation. They were walking through one of those, as David had called it, “valleys of the shadow of death.” Unlike David, however, there was a sense of grief, dread and dullness. It was one of those moments when questions of “what next” and “what now” hung over the nation like a shroud. Nature abhors a vacuum and so does God. The anticipated emptiness became a realized fullness.

I have the feeling that the season of exile in its inception and through to its end had to present such an emptiness. This emptiness was created by disobedience of the people and their leadership to not heed God’s instruction. God gave Isaiah the instruction to speak the truth to the nation. Isaiah felt unworthy to the task. Interesting that his excuse for not stepping up and stepping in was similar to that of Moses when God appeared to him in the burning bush. God fueled the burning in Moses’ heart for deliverance but gave him Aaron to speak for him when Pharaoh had to be confronted. Isaiah, however, had his lips pressed upon with a burning coal. His heart was not aflame for the passion of his people. Instead, Isaiah said he was just like all the rest of the people. He declared “I am a man of unclean lips among an entire people of unclean lips.” The truth of righteousness was far from him and them. Who was he to speak to them? God doesn’t like excuses. Excuses are not a part of our spiritual DNA. They are learned statements born out of a sin nature. They have to be undone. Discipline has to be meted out. That current way of thinking leads nowhere good. It is a path we can take. It is not the path which God has chosen for us. It is not the path for which we have been created. He will allow us to go but not without a fight all along the way. We may think God is fighting against us or worse has abandoned us. Hopefully someone has said to us and planted the valued seed of truth into our heart, mind and soul “As God is for us then who can triumph over us?“

This is where we are today in the course of Isaiah’s walk of faith before the nation of Israel in all of its contexts. In these two verses, our attention is drawn back to the truth of who we are and how we have been made. We might do well to frame it as a “crucible” moment. It is where our “mettle” is tested by fire and reduced to its essential elements. It is a trial by fire with the intention to reform us, restore us and render us powerful. For Isaiah and Israel, the exile experience was that crucible moment. The disobedience of a people by ignoring or compromising God’s Word of leadership had culminated in the discipline of exile. The reality of that moment was that God had done it. It wasn’t just a thing that happened. There are no accidents in God’s kingdom on earth nor in Heaven. He had made the forge and fueled the fire of it to burn hot against the hardness of the people. It was not to destroy them but refine them and redefine them as worthy. They were weak in the choice to be sinners, naysayers and fence-sitters. Yet, the nature of God in them since before they were born was resilient, capable and good. It had to be drawn back out of them so that they and the world would know the truth.

Mighty ones of God, we are going through such a time as that now in this nation and in this world. Is our “mettle” dross to be consumed by the fire or purity to survive the fire? Will we believe in God and in what He has made and is making now? Will we doubt and make excuses for not trusting His Word for our lives, in our lives and through them for the good of the world? Will we languish in exile and simply surrender to the inevitable demise? Will we stand fast and steel ourselves by the will of God for the inevitable victory? God told Isaiah of victory and the means by which it would come. It comes by putting our faith in the promise of God that we will be lead through these “valleys of the shadows of death.” We will be given a shepherd, a warrior, a savior, a messiah who will show us the way, the truth and the life. What will we believe? God who is for us so that no weapon formed against us shall prevail. Or the world which will pass away.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness which we know is folly but righteous works which declare Your glory and further witness the truth that can set all who believe free from death. So may we live by the name of Jesus our Christ.