Isaiah 57:14-21 (NIV UK) reads:
14 And it will be said: ‘Build up, build up, prepare the road! Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people.’ 15 For this is what the high and lofty One says – he who lives for ever, whose name is holy: ‘I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. 16 I will not accuse for ever, nor will I always be angry, for then the spirit of man would grow faint before me – the breath of man that I have created. 17 I was enraged by his sinful greed; I punished him, and hid my face in anger, yet he kept on in his wilful ways. 18 I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him, 19 creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. Peace, peace, to those far and near,’ says the Lord. ‘And I will heal them.’ 20 But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. 21 ‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked.’ These are incredibly reassuring words from Isaiah, as we start this new year; a reminder that the God who lives in ‘a high and holy place’ is also the God who is with those who are ‘contrite and lowly in spirit’. The one who is ‘high and lofty’ and ‘whose name is holy’ is also the one who draws near with mercy and compassion to those he has lovingly created, in all their fallenness and brokenness. Even when we ‘enrage’ God by our actions, he draws near with great love to his fallen creation. There is a reminder in these verses that we are fully known by God. He knows all our ways, and all our wilfulness, yet he remembers our fragility and chooses to come close to us with incredible, yet entirely dependable, faithfulness. ‘I have seen his ways’, says God. Nothing is hidden from him. The good, the bad, and the ugly. ‘But I will heal him’. What an incredible promise. We are fully known by God; and yet, we are fully loved by God.
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December 2020
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