Isaiah 21:2-4 - A dire vision has been shown to
me: The traitor betrays, the looter takes loot. Elam,
attack! Media, lay siege! I will bring to an end all the groaning
she caused. At this my body is racked
with pain, pangs seize me, like those of a woman in labor; I am staggered by what I hear, I am bewildered by
what I see. My heart
falters, fear makes me tremble; the twilight I longed for has
become a horror to me.
It was his job…to relate messages from God to the people he
had been placed among. He was used to delivering negative news….in hopes that
people would listen and turn back to the one true God…completely lay down their
idols and worship of other gods. But this vision gripped him so completely that
he felt the pain he had to tell them about. It woke him up in the night…and
brought pure fear to his soul…for he didn’t just see the destruction of the
people he warned…he felt it physically.
Maybe the point here is that if we truly accept God…and
embrace our jobs for him in full passion…we not only see the needs of the world…but
we are able to feel them like Isaiah did here.
They seem so real to us that it prompts us to be even more passionate in
the way we help others. If we feel their pain that deeply….then we are more apt
to act on the need they have with our whole heart.
Perhaps it was not stress that caused Jesus to sweat blood
in Gethsemane that night he prayed to the father to see if there was any other
way to save us. Perhaps it was the pain
of everyone he saved the next day when he sacrificed his perfect body on the
cross. Perhaps all the physical pain he felt in the abuse….whips….walk to Golgotha
with his cross…and the nails that ripped his feet and hands…was like the
childbirth pains that Isaiah spoke of.
There is a curious fact about childbirth pain. I remember very clearly the 3 times that God
blessed me with a child…and each time it met with severe pain. But the pain has faded away …to a joy
unspeakable as I held each baby for the first time. The joy doesn’t deplete…it just gets deeper
over the years …as you are allowed to watch them grow and realize their own
purpose in life. I bet Jesus felt the
same joy as he stared into his father’s eyes face to face…perhaps hearing how
proud he was of his son to have completed the job he put him on Earth to do. I
believe that is what is meant in Psalm 30:5…which says…. “For his anger
endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night,
but joy cometh in the morning.”
Father….thank you for the reminder that pain can be an
important thermometer of how much we truly love you and the others you have
placed around us. Forgive me for the
times that I have prayed for you to take the pain away…instead of using it to
feel the needs that you wanted me to help fill.
Give me a heart like Isaiah …that feels the pain of every task you give
me to do…so that you will proud of me when I finally understand your plan enough
to finish the task you have given me to do. Amen.
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