January 12, 2001
"A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit." Isaiah 11:1
I start to read and most days don't get much beyond the first verse before I learn something powerful or amazing about our God!!! When I looked at this verse something jumped out at me..
In the previous ten chapters Isaiah painted a picture as God commanded him; he highlighted the utter devastation of Israel. It was going to be bad. I've often wondered, and don't ever want to find out, what it must feel like to see your home and/or town devastated by a natural disaster.. the hopelessness that you must feel. To have to look at the destruction and then try to summon up the energy & courage to face it and then start to rebuild. That is what God did. In an act of unfathomable love he allowed his people, his inheritance, his creation, that which meant the most to him, the love of his life to be destroyed. From the ashes of that he rebuilt a nation, a people for himself. He gave mankind a second chance; not only did he build a people again but from the remnant of this devastation is where he brought forth the Messiah. From a stump, he brought forth a shoot, from its root he produced the greatest, most precious of all fruit!! With a plan to give the best he had to a people that had already not appreciated the many gifts he had given.
While I marvelled at our God I wondered what practical application this had and thought of Romans 4:17 where it says "... God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were." We serve an amazing God, we have seen & heard of these things in creation, in building a people and a nation for himself but how quickly I can forget when faced with challenges that God is able! He can take things that do not exist in my character and make them my strength. Things in my life that don't seem to have a prayer of ever happening and turn them into reality. It doesn't matter who I am, beyond being his child, it doesn't matter what I can or can't do.. WHO I believe in and WHO I choose to put my faith in is all that matters.HE IS ABLE!!