Passage Read: Isaiah 47-50
Meditation Verses: 49:13-16
Thought
The Lord has struck Israel and devastated her. She was cast out and her children scattered from her. She thought she was forever rejected and her children forever gone. But the Lord is far more powerful than that. Though He slay us, yet shall we live. He must discipline His people for their foolishness, and though their folly is so great that it seems there is no hope of restoration, yet all God does is for discipline and repentance and cleansing and purification. His goal is good, though the process may look and feel like utter rejection. His goal is to restore Israel to Himself as a pure bride. And her scattered children are gone, but not lost to Him. He knows exactly where they are. He knows exactly how to bring them home. And He knows exactly when to restore all things.
Application
The discipline of the Lord can seem like rejection with no hope of restoration. Serving the Lord as faithfully as I understand can seem like complete failure. Jesus was arrested and crucified, and all His disciples were scattered from Him. Defeat was complete. But not to God. Jesus conquered death and all His disciples but the one doomed to destruction were restored to His side. They went on out in the power of the Lord and started a church that continues to multiply to this day. Near the end of his life, Paul spoke of being abandoned and alone, yet he did not lose hope, but trusted in the Lord to guard all he had entrusted to Him. Devastation may be for discipline or it may just be the normal course of serving the Lord. It is not a sign of rejection, but of love. To purify my devotion to the Lord, to test and prove my faith. If I do not give up on Him--and He doesn't want me to--I will be shocked and amazed by the crowd of children He restores to me when that day comes. I need to become less, He must become all. But to the one who loses everything for Christ and His kingdom, there will be untold riches and reward, children innumerable, restored to him in that day. No matter how bleak things look, no matter how failed I feel, I cannot give up seeking to know the Lord in truth and serve Him as He desires, in hope that He will restore to me more than I thought I lost.