Today’s Scripture Reading (January 24, 2017): Isaiah 33
Every Thursday morning, I used to trade sermons with a colleague. We read what the other has prepared for the weekend messages, and then bring suggestions on how it might be made even better. Even though we are friends, and we trust each other, it's incredible how often we start off by telling each other the weaknesses we see in our sermons. It is the pre-emptive strike – before you read this, I already know how bad it is.
Pre-emptive strikes are part of the human condition. Sometimes they are directed at ourselves, as mine are with my friend on Thursday mornings. And sometimes they are directed at the other person, a kind of I am going to get you before you can get me, like a lawyer in court trying to discredit a witness before they can give the damaging testimony. We destroy before we can be destroyed; we betray before we can be betrayed.
Part of what Isaiah is saying here is that there is that maybe there is a kind of karma at work in our lives where we get what we deserve. But if we are totally honest with ourselves, we know another truth behind the words. We are all betrayers, and we are all betrayed – we are all the destroyers, and we are all destroyed.
It is into that very mess that God wants to step. And before we start feeling sorry for ourselves when we are the betrayed and the destroyed – know that that is exactly where God loves to work. God’s promise is not that he will be with us just when things are good, but that he will be there in the hard times – he will be God when the water is deep and the fire is hot.
As hard as it is to go through the times of deep water and fire in our lives – know that God is in the water and the fire with us. And he is working even within the worst circumstances of our lives to bring glory to himself. He is continually healing to us. And that is the good news of which every one of us needs to be reminded.
Originally Published on February 19, 2011
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah 34
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