March 31, 2001
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
Give ear and come to me;
hear me, that your soul may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
my faithful love promised to David.
Isaiah 55:2-3
Sometimes just changing a single word opens my eyes to new things. I have heard the term 'everlasting covenant' so many times that it doesn't always strike me with the wonder and amazement that it should. But today I saw at it differently.. God chose to 'bind' himself to us. Think for a moment, if you had to choose someone to be bound to for the rest of your life who would it be? Stay with me for a second.. I don't mean bound as in marriage, I mean literally yoked as oxen were, if you had to be tied, bound, yoked to someone 24 * 7 for the rest of your life who would you choose? That changes everything doesn't it... you think hard even about your closest friends. It's under these circumstances and it is this level of commitment that God made to us!!
That is amazing enough but God made a commitment not just to be their God, but to be their protector and friend. I'm guessing that concept of God would constantly need adjusting because of what they would see in the nations around them. Israel would have seen and heard about gods who were someone the people needed but didn't need them. Someone who would do what they needed (maybe) but was temperamental, distant, uninvolved, unavailable, considered to be above them, no feelings and they would lack any emotion or concern for their personal lives. Even today God wants us to understand that he is so different from the things that we choose sometimes to have as 'gods' in our lives.. whether it's an addictive substance, our jobs, a relationship, ourselves.. whatever.. it may seem to meet our need for the moment (maybe) but ultimately it's all the things listed above and will fail us. But GOD.... wants to go beyond all that and be protector and friend. Those are themes that ring out loud and clear in the scriptures. He bound himself to us but it isn't the drudgery of a life sentence.. something I can't fully understand is that he set himself up to need us! Because of the way God set things up we have the capacity to hurt him by what we do. He longs to work in our lives, he wants to walk beside us as protector and friend!! To hold our hand, encourage and strengthen, be emotionally involved in our lives, he weeps for us and with us. He is consistent in his character and faithful to his promises, we need never be concerned that God will change his mind or turn his back on us! He is available and yearns to be called upon, he is above us but lowers himself so that we don't feel looked down upon.