God’s Good Plan
One Year Bible (Sep. 28)
Isaiah 54:1-57:14
GOD’S GOOD PLAN
It was Halloween, October 31, 2020.
To tell you the truth, I still don’t have 20/20 vision about that day and all that came after it.
Perhaps, I never will… in this lifetime.
I feel called to write a book about that chapter of my life… after I somewhat “recover from it all”.
I am reading through the entire Bible and writing about it as part of that recovery. You all are just along for the ride. (Thank you so much for coming with me on this journey.)
You see, I am forever impacted. You can call it PTSD, Mid-life crisis, (Too late for that label), or just plain ol’ fear of the next shoe falling… because it will! Whatever you call it, I have a “bad case of it!” I have learned the “fragileness of life” and to “Count the number of our days so that we may apply wisdom.” (Ps. 90:12-17)
I have also learned to mourn with those who mourn. But, mostly I have learned of the great need to receive COMFORT and to give COMFORT also.
There is a verse yesterday that stood out to me, “I, yes I, am the one who COMFORTS you. So why are you afraid of mere humans, who wither like the grass and disappear?... (51:12)
Did you catch that? Who is the “one who COMFORTS us”? He says, “My name is the LORD OF HEAVEN’S ARMIES.” (51:15)
God’s people were in captivity, but He is asking them to “lift their eyes”.
Have you ever been stuck in captivity? How easy is it when you are in a helpless, defenseless, perilous state to lift your eyes? Yet, these words prophesied by Isaiah refer to 700 years later in the future…
How are you at waiting when you are in pain?
On that Halloween day in 2022, my daughter and I were driving in the desert between Palm Springs and El Centro Ca. It was hot as always, but on this day I could feel the sweat running down my face. In the middle of nowhere, she went to swallow and could not!
I tried calling for help and had to keep moving. We drove faster than the wind to the closest hospital. It was there that they put pads around her bed to protect her from seizures and our one-year hellish journey began. By the next day, she would be transferred by ambulance to San Diego.
There would be seizures, operations, a feeding tube in the nose, surgery after surgery, a feeding tube put in her tummy, gall bladder stone removal and stint, gallbladder removed, Mono, Migraines…
Friends would pray for healing, but for one year we spent more days in ERs or admitted to a hospital than at home. I always had a bag packed, and life just fell apart…
This is where the message of Isaiah needs to sink into our hearts not just skim as information to our minds…The exiled people were God’s chosen people with children and homes and all they knew in the way of their homeland was taken away. They had sinned.
But, then there was Job and he was a RIGHTEOUS man who had not sinned, and he also lost it all. He sat in the captivity of pain and suffering while his friends falsely accused and corrected him. Living in a fallen world is PAINFUL! That is a lesson we can all agree on!
As sinful as the chosen people of God were, there was no sacrifice or payment for their sins, and as righteous as Job was, he was still a fallen, fleshly human man living under the curse of Adam and Eve’s sin. There was no way out for him, either, and Satan knew that!
Our daughter's problems began on October 31st, and to me, that is no coincidence. Some think of this as a fun day when goblins, witches, and evil happily roam the streets. Sadly, I don't see any innocence in what it has become as we have helped people trapped in Satanism find rescue. The stories they have shared with us and the evidence that we have seen with our own eyes tell a different story. We have been verbally and physically threatened by evil and it is not a holiday. The enemy is always at work trying to stop the work of the Christian. (Remember our study of Job?)
Our daughter is as righteous a little soul as I have ever met. To watch an innocent, sweet soul suffer is beyond misery...
If we live in this world and miss the intense spiritual battle that is going on, then we have missed the entire message of the Bible!
Why is God called “THE LORD OF HEAVEN’S ARMIES? He is leading the war and it will be a battle until the VICTORY IS WON!
Isaiah 53 foretold that the Righteous Servant would come to end our captivity. The victory over Satan is found in one word, GRACE!
One day soon, he will be thrown into the “lake of fire” for a second death. (Rev. 20:14) Right now he roams on a long chain tormenting the people of God. The name of Jesus holds him in check until the day of his complete defeat.
Why? Because, the Righteous Servant, Jesus submitted himself to DEATH as part of God’s “GOOD PLAN” to take our SIN and give us SALVATION.
Here's the deal, dear friends. This doesn’t look like a “GOOD PLAN” to human eyes that only see “earth through headlights”. But, It is a GRAND PLAN to a God who sees “earth through a rearview mirror” and sees all of HEAVEN through the eyes of sovereignty…
Listen to God’s powerful words to us today in Isaiah 55:8-9, “‘My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the Lord. ‘and my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than you thoughts’.”
Make no mistake, GOD’S GOOD PLAN is higher than this earth… It is HEAVENLY!
