Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the LORD: Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn; - Isaiah 51:1

Today's Scripture Reading (August 3, 2020): Isaiah 51

Author Richelle E. Goodrich in "Smile Anyway" argues that "Disappointment is really just a term for our refusal to look on the bright side." It is a good thought, but maybe an incomplete one. Sometimes discouragement can take over our lives, not because we choose, but because circumstances carry us in a direction that we don't want to go. And sometimes, the reality is that the bright side seems so far away that it is almost impossible to reach. Few of us are lucky enough to have never known a dark night of the soul. And it is during those dark nights that it is hard to find the 'bright side.'

Isaiah urges the people to listen to him. They are hearing the words, but they aren't listening, internalizing, and understanding Isaiah's, and God's, meaning. They are discouraged by where life has taken them, and they cannot find the path to "the bright side." And so, they are wallowing in their disappointment, allowing their discouragement to consume them and steal away their future.

God's solution? Rehearse where we have already been. For Israel, it was a reminder of other dark times through which they and their ancestors had suffered. This was not the first time that Israel found themselves as foreigners in a strange land. The nation was cut out of Egyptian rocks where they were used, abused, and feared. And yet they found themselves out of that discouragement into brighter days. The early days of the founding of the nation had not been easy ones, but God had brought them through. There was no reason to believe that God did not have a bright side for them now. But Isaiah did not need the people to simply hear his words; he needed them to listen to him, and in the process, listen to the words of God.

We still suffer through discouragements and disappointments. We still struggle to see the brighter days. But the encouragement of Isaiah remains true. We have seen good times, and we will see them again. The bright side might be just around the corner.

Alan Redpath makes this argument;

"Once a Christian gets eaten up with discouragement and unbelief it takes a great deal to shake him out of it. Those two emotions are the masterstrokes of Satan. So long as the child of God maintains an attitude of praise and trust in the Lord, then he is invincible. Once the devil gets him discouraged, that poor man in really going to take a knocking" (Alan Redpath, Faith for the Times: Studies in the Book of Isaiah)!

We can't let Satan win. We need to look to the past, to the rock from which we were cut, and know that what God has done, he can do again. The bright side is not too far away, even if we can't see it right now.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Isaiah 52