As Cici said yesterday, we're in the comfort part of Isaiah and I am definitely feeling more comfortable in it! There are so many great descriptions of God and His power and His personal interest in these chapters. But, one phrase keeps coming to my mind:
Can you picture me without reducing me? (46:5)
I'm pretty sure the answer is, "No God, I can't." I know my picture of God is too small in every dimension. Too limited, too puny, too discrete. I do not live in the earth the way "
He made it to be lived in." (45:19) The world I live in is much too consumed with me. "
What delusion! Smugly telling yourself, 'I'm Number One. There's nobody but me.'" (47:10)
"[The prophets'] words and visions penetrate the illusions with which we cocoon ourselves from reality. We humans have an enormous capacity for denial and for self-deceit. We incapacitate ourselves from dealing with the consequences of sin, for facing judgment, for embracing truth. Then the prophets step in and help us to first recognize and then enter the new life God has for us, the life that hope in God opens up.
"They don't explain God. They shake us out of old conventional habits of small-mindedness, of trivializing god-gossip, and set us on our feet in wonder and obedience and worship. If we insist on understanding them before we live into them, we will never get it." (Peterson, Introduction to Prophets)
Father, I'm not exactly sure of the meanings of everything You say through Isaiah. I don't want to reduce You to what I can understand and I don't want to insist on understanding before living into Your Word. This is new territory for me and I'm so grateful that I'm not treading this path alone.
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