March 29, 2001
Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed," says the LORD, who has compassion on you.
"O afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will build you with stones of turquoise,
your foundations with sapphires. I will make your battlements of rubies,
your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious stones.
Isaiah 54:10-12
More than a glimpse... today I feel blinded by the glory of God!! Two amazing thoughts about the heart of God are found here. In verse 10 he promises never again to remove his love from his people. If you read a few verses earlier he likens this to his promise never to destroy the world again by flood, which he kept. He promises to never be angry, never to rebuke his people again. He promises that nothing, no event, no matter how powerful it may appear can EVER cause God to remove his love or his covenant from his people. That tells me that on those days when I think that surely I have tried God's patience for the last time, he must be tired of me by now and I am tempted to pull back from him, to not pray to not pour out my heart.. that I am wrong! My thinking and my feelings are wrong! God stands firm behind his promises - in fact this is repeated in Romans 8:38-39 Nothing.... can separate us from the love of God!!
In these verses God goes on to expound on what he will do with his people, his church ultimately. He uses a figurative language that should help us to envision a city built of gems... beautiful, magnificent, breathtaking are the words that come to mind. I initially missed the impact of these verses and looked in a commentary to get a better understanding. He speaking to his people in captivity about her future as a nation now but it is also prophetic about the church God would build. He has taken a nation that has been lashed by storms... picture the total devastation of cities along the coast that get hit by hurricanes... he promises to take a people that look like that and build something that sparkles so bright it will almost be difficult to look at. What the verses talk about and are missed in the NIV is the idea that even the cement that holds the bricks together will be made of the most precious gems, the references here are to those gems and colors considered to be most valued (turquoise). A foundations of sapphires and battlements, which were the pinnacles of the structure would be made of rubies. The gates surrounding the city and all of it's walls would have beautiful, rich, sparkling gems. The types and colors mentioned were the richest and some of the costliest in that day. This should give us visions of the Church/new Jerusalem described in Revelation 21:18-21.
This passage first opens my eyes to what God can do... he is not limited by the state that things, or we, are in. This is often where my faith breaks down. I look at the current disaster and can't imagine things being different or better but when I lift my eyes an focus on God I see what's possible. What He is capable of and the things he has already done! Time and again in the scriptures I read about how God creates the living from the dead or from nothing. He takes hopeless situations and infuses them with hope. He takes utter destruction and creates beauty beyond the imagination!
Second, this awakens me again to God's desire to make things better than they ever were. When God restores he doesn't restore something to it's past condition or even its most recent best condition.. he creates beauty beyond the imagination. This reminds me of another scripture...
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.
For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
2 Cor 4:16-18
God desires to and still works in our lives in this way... despite what may be happening around us, in our lives -- inside us, in our heart and in our spirit God is creating a work of beauty. I can't always see it, I tend to be focused on the external and can only see things wasting away. But God is restoring and rebuilding our lives constantly... he does it through our 'light and momentary' troubles. They don't always feel so 'light and momentary' but in the big scheme that's what they are and they are part of his process!