Letter To Our Children
by Pastor Joe | March 15, 2023 | Letters To Our Children
March 15, 2023
A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All people are like grass,
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever.”
He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
I’m flying, and from way up here you all look like little ants.
Heimlich, from Pixar’s, A Bug’s Life.
Hello friends!
I have three books about the Bible I am studying together. I am in the place in each of them where their focus is on the majesty of God. The bent is the same. They chose a time in place in Bible history when God’s people were afraid, tired, and spent. Isaiah chapter 40 is one example.
It is here God speaks to people whose mood is like many- downhearted people, bullied people, fearful people, people whom it seems that the tide of life has been against them for a long time. Now, look at how God reasons with them.
Behold Your God
Look at all I have done. Could you do any of this? Could any person anywhere do them? Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens, who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? (Vs.12) Are you strong enough and wise enough to do this thing? But I (God) am! There would not be a world at all without me.
What about all the nations, Isaiah writes. Great powers who seem like they have complete control over you. (Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon were the superpowers of that time.) They have many times more than you in everything. However, compare me (God) to them.
You are afraid of nations who are much greater than you, but I (God) am infinitely greater than them. Infinitely greater > Much greater.
Look at the world. Think about how big it is. Think about how complicated it can be. There are more than eight billion people who live here. (November 15, 2022, was the projected day the eighth billionth person would be born. It happened on November 17) What about the sky above? The universe is getting bigger and bigger. Yet compare all of that to God, and it will all be small, incredibly small when you do. He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy and spreads them out like a tent to live in. (Vs.22)
What To Do with God’s Immensity.
Isaiah will write more in chapter 40 about the immensity of God, however, let's see how God applies by His asking three straightforward questions.
Your thoughts of God are too human, said Luther to Erasmus. He is not like us! There is no comparison. He never abandons those whom He has placed His love on. The people thought God had left them to themselves, had abandoned them, leaving them high and dry as it were. I know you, what is the trouble? God says. What have you learned about me that would cause you to think I am fickle, weak, and have grown tired of caring for you?
Our Lesson
Here is our lesson, God wants us to have strong thoughts about Him, ever increasing. God wants us to have no thoughts of Him abandoning us for any reason. God is not in the business of leaving His people high and dry. He is not in the business of leaving His people high and dry. God also wants us to wrestle with ourselves and question ourselves when we have thoughts of God that are far too small. Finally, God wants us to think about Him deeply and truthfully until we find our strength renewed and our hope rekindled by God Himself. That's the way.
May God bless you with large thoughts of Him this week and beyond.
Pastor Joe