Isaiah 49:14
These words were first spoken by Isaiah for the people of Israel who were feeling completely forsaken by the Lord during their exile in Babylon. They had been conquered and carried away and were feeling like the Lord had completely forgotten that they were His people, that He had promised to protect and guide them and be with them. Valid thoughts by Israel.
And they are my thoughts, too.
I began to ponder when, exactly, it is that I feel most forsaken, most forgotten, most abandoned by God.
Similarly to Israel, my greatest moments of despair are when I have prayed and prayed for something (usually release from some source of pain) and He has not answered my prayer. OR when I have prayed and prayed for something to become a reality, and He has not answered that prayer. In short, I feel abandoned most when He doesn't do things my way and in my time.
Huh.
Looks like Israel and I have much in common. Just as they did not understand that their time of captivity in Babylon was, indeed, for their good, for their health, and for them to have an expanded and corrected view of God, so I do not understand the same things.
When pain comes into my life, I immediately cry foul. Pain cannot coexist with love in my paradigm.
But He is changing that.
I am coming to see that pain not only can exist with love, it must exist with love. Without pain comes no change, no growth, no expanded and corrected view of Him. He is intimate with me in my pain. It is precisely there that He exists.
Far from abandoning me to my pain, He is tenderly present there.
Isaiah 49 goes on to say in the next verses
"Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.
Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands."
How intimate is the presence of a nursing mother to her baby? The sweet baby is actually drawing life from his mommy at her breast. How could she possibly forget that child? (And anyone who has ever nursed a baby knows that within a few hours, your chest becomes extremely hard and painful if the child does not nurse -- it is physically impossible to forget the child you are nursing!)
But God says, even if that were to be able to happen, even so, I will never forget you. I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands -- and this is no tattoo on His palm (tattoos don't stay on the palm because of the high cellular turnover). This is a literal carving of my name into His palm -- a deep cutting, with blood, to get my name permanently there. He's invested in this journey with me, in this relationship with me. And He's not just in it for today or to get me through my current crisis. He is in this for the long haul -- to my death and then beyond my death into all eternity. His view of our relationship is much greater than mine often is. And each moment holds another revelation of His true Self to me, if I'm willing.
So, when I feel forsaken, abandoned, forgotten, has He forgotten me? No. It is impossible. What has abandoned me is my small view of Him. He has blown apart yet another of my "little gods" that I had inadvertently created. These little gods are ideas about Him (that are not true) that I worship instead of Him, that I hold onto instead of Him, that I use as ammunition against Him in my angry tirades at Him. But they only serve to block me from Him. Therein lies my feeling of abandonment. I have a shield against Him of my own creation. And I feel alone.
When I'm feeling alone, without His presence, what do I do? I pray. I ask Him to reveal the lie that I have believed about Him.
If God is truly good, truly loving, will He allow deep pain to touch my life? Yes.
If He cares about me, will He refuse to give me some things that I desperately desire? Yes.
If He is present in my life, will He allow things to fall apart? Yes.
Sigh. I don't understand.
So, I ask Him for an expanded and corrected view of Him. I ask Him to show me how He is present to me, to re-frame my current circumstance and pain so that I may see Him accurately. Because He is there. He is as close as my next breath. He cannot forget me or be far off.
But my little gods easily can get blown apart in the face of His true self, His true working, His loving plan that I don't understand. And that is what He's all about -- destroying things which stand between His heart and mine beating as one.
Lord, give me the heart to see you more clearly and to see your true Self amidst my pain. I want to know You, not some smaller, controllable version of you that I have created.
Pain or not, I'm in this for the long haul.
For all eternity.
I'm in.
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