Passage Read: Isaiah 43-46
Meditation Verses: 45:9-10
Thought
"Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker!" Who are we compared with the Lord? Oh, if only we could prove that the Lord is nothing, that He is just an idol, a block of wood carved by men, gold fashioned by a craftsman. Then we could make Him say whatever we want. Then we could disregard anything He said that didn't line up with our wants. But the Lord is not like these. He is not the work of men's hands. He is the creator of all things; we are the work of His hands! So for us to quarrel with what the Lord says or does is absolute madness. What are we? Potsherds among potsherds. He is the potter; we are bits of failed and smashed pots! Who are we to question what He is doing? To be insulted by anything He says? To be offended by anything He requires of us? That is like a child rejecting the right of his parents to lead and rule and train and direct, "What is this you have begotten? What have you brought to birth?" It is not the child who made himself, and so he has no right over himself! He is a product of the parents and completely beholden to them, as surely as the pot belongs to the potter and is fashioned according to his desire--or remade or cast aside and smashed as rejected.
Application
It is absolute folly for any one of us to quarrel with what the Lord is doing with our lives or requiring of us with our lives. We belong to Him. He made us. We think we have rights over ourselves; we have none but what He gives us or what we take by stealing. But we will not get far. We will soon face Him in judgment. We who insist on going our own way will find ourselves cast out, rejected, thrown into eternal fire. Those who rejected the Lord's right to rule over us, like the arrogant child who acts as if he owes nothing to his parents, he will find himself to be rejected, when all along he thought he had won his freedom. Freedom to be tormented forever. Woe is reserved for me and anyone else who does not acknowledge and accept the Lord's right to do with me whatever He wishes, who thinks he is independent of the Lord and has rights to do with himself whatever he pleases, who would quarrel with God over anything He does in my life. Woe and grief and rejection and punishment.