Isaiah on Tuesday - Damascus, The Point of Desperation

One of the stages of grieving is "bargaining." This is the point where one attempts to exchange the pain or loss for something, often a behavioral change. I think it is built into our psyche to reach out to a higher power when we reach the point of desperation. It is an acknowledgement that our current circumstances are beyond our control and only an act of God can change them.

In Isaiah 17, Damascus is the target of the prophet's oracle. As God works on this city, we see one of the ways in which He also works with us. It's not a way any of us would choose, and I certainly wouldn't impose it on any person or nation. God, in His sovereignty, however, knows what it takes to take a hardened, wayward heart and turn it back towards Him. This seems to me cruel and harsh, but my view is so short-sighted and my understanding so small, that I must yield to a wisdom and a knowledge that is far beyond me.

Isaiah, combining again the ideas of judgment and promise, sets out the future of Damascus (and Jacob, that is Israel):

⁴ "In that day the glory of Jacob will fade;
the fat of his body will waste away.

⁵ It will be as when a reaper gathers the standing grain
and harvests the grain with his arm—
as when a man gleans heads of grain
in the Valley of Rephaim.

⁶ Yet some gleanings will remain,
as when an olive tree is beaten,
leaving two or three olives on the topmost branches,
four or five on the fruitful boughs,"
declares the LORD, the God of Israel.

⁷ In that day men will look to their Maker
and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.

⁸ They will not look to the altars,
the work of their hands,
and they will have no regard for the Asherah poles
and the incense altars their fingers have made.

God is going to shake up this people, but in so doing they will understand the source of their salvation. It isn't through anything they have done or will do, but from God, Himself.

Sometimes, our circumstances are like that. Something happens that shakes us to the core, that makes us realize that are not, can not, be the source of our salvation. In those times, it really is only God who is able to provide peace, joy or hope because He is beyond our circumstances, beyond our loss, beyond the temporal realities of this world.

I am unwilling to attribute all loss, all disaster or all hardship to God's judgment. It is too crass a statement, too blunt, too easy to misinterpret and ofteninaccuratee. (As an aside, it is also important to keep in mind that judgment and punishment are not the same thing. The have all too often been usedinterchangeablyy, to the detriment of our understanding of the concepts.) What I am willing to say is that how we respond to disaster is a reflection of who we are. God can (has and does) take our darkest hours and worst nightmares and use them for His glory. That in no way mitigates the pain, loss or questions that may arise from those circumstances, but it is a pinprick of light in an otherwise dark place.