Year 9, Day 39: Isaiah 55

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What a phenomenal chapter of the Bible!  It is filled with great hope and joy.  It is filled with familiar expressions.  This chapter is like sitting beside a warm fire with a good book and a cup of fragrant tea.  It is like food for the soul.  There is much to love here.

Look how this chapter opens.  “Come, everyone who thirsts.”  People may make the case that there is an implied Hebrew audience to these words.  I, however, choose to read them as written.  God desires that anyone who thirsts come to Him.  Anyone who seeks His restoration and refreshment can come to Him.  I feel this is especially appropriate when considering Isaiah 55:5.  “You shall call a nation you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you.”  God desires that all – anyone, anywhere – come to Him should they desire to come.  God is exceptionally inclusive in His desire to be found by anyone who truly seeks Him.

The grace and the mercy listed in the opening verses has a bit of a footnote, though.  We are to seek the Lord while He is to be found.  This verse can be taken several ways.  The most obvious way, and I also to believe an incorrect way, is that there is a time that God does not want to be found.  I don’t believe that a God who desires that anyone who wants to come to Him would intentionally hide so it is impossible to find Him. 

Rather, I believe that this is a warning to seek the Lord while we can still find Him.  There are many ways that we will be unable to find Him.  The most obvious is upon our death.  Once I am dead, I will no longer be able to seek the Lord.  My time will be done, I’ll have breathed my last.  I need to seek the Lord before that point.  However, I don’t think death is the only interpretation here.  The further I go away from God, the harder it is to turn to Him.  The further into my own rebellion I go, the more difficult it is to retreat out of it.  It is certainly not impossible, but it does become more and more difficult.  God will always be found to those who want to seek Him, but if a person grows too engrossed into their own pursuit of sin they may not be able to overcome the difficulty associated with repentance.  God’s warning is clear.  We need to seek Him while He is to be found.  It is not His desire to hide but our inability that keeps our relationship with Him from being discovered.

We can be confident in this, because we know that the words of the Lord do not return empty to Him.  His words come to us, feed us, and bring about His will.  If we but turn to Him, He has the power to bring us to Him.  He has the ability to bring us into joy and gladness.  He has the ability to take a broken and contrite heart and turn it into an expression of joy and splendor.

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