March 21, 2001
"The LORD will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins;
he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the LORD.
Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing. "
Isaiah 51:3
After studying the Bible with a special friend last night where we talked about God's desire for her relationship with him to be restored; this morning I am awakened to God's restorative heart! In the study we talked about how when you restore something you don't bring it back to the condition it was in, you don't cover it with something that's the same you work to make it better than it was before. That is and always has been, God's heart for his people!! This prophecy is written to Israel near the end of her captivity... she had been in captivity for almost 70 years.. can you imagine the devastation of the land? Being a city kid and not having been exposed to much other than asphalt the only image I can conjure up in my mind comes from the Lion King. When Simba first comes back from hiding and looks over the land that his uncle Scar has ruled over and obviously not cared for, its horrible... devoid of life, dry cracked ground, colors that are all dark & gray -- you can feel the hopelessness i the land. That image stands out in my mind when I read this verse. This is what Israel's land, the Promised Land, God's very precious gift to them... this is the shape it as in. It makes me think of how our lives can get at times. God has promises, vision, a hope and a future for us but for a variety of reasons, some self-inflicted, our lives become ravaged, they become wastelands. Seemingly devoid of life... Our God has a restorative heart and HE DOES THE WORK. We need only take a step toward him... He looks on us with compassion, regardless of how we got into the state we are in... he'll deal with our sin but that doesn't negate his love and compassion!! If I'm in a mess because of my own sin the promises is no less true - God doesn't work less diligently in my life because of that!
His promise is to restore us to a condition more beautiful than we can imagine... from a desert, not just to a Garden but to THE Garden of Eden... what does that mean exactly... I don't know for sure... but it must be more beautiful than anything I have ever seen. Although God created all the world, he spoke everything into existence.. Gen 2:8 says that God PLANTED the Garden of Eden. He put special love, tenderness, care, time, thought and energy into that Garden I imagine that it had to be more incredible, more beautiful that anything else he had created. This is the restorative heart - effort - energy that God puts into our lives -- helping us get back to the promised land in our lives - to be in relationship with him the way he always dreamt!!