Stephanie Yucius
Isaiah 48:18-19
If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea…
The chapter of Isaiah 48 carries a message of speaking to Israel about its stubborn ways. The message in its entirety of the chapter speaks to Israel following the commands of living into God’s call for their lives. The resistance of the people has them in captivity in Babylon. The people had put out of their minds the promise of the new covenant with God and stayed weak in their faith. This weakness has kept them in captivity and not receiving the new covenant. In the lines of 18-19, God tells of the promise that if His teachings and commands had been kept then there would peace like a flowing and unfailing river. With water being so important to the people, that message is clear to the benefits that their lives would have found if they had kept to God’s commands. The “numberless grains” speaks to the many descendants that could have been, rather than them dying in captivity.
I reflect often, questioning if I am truly keeping God’s call to my life. Am I doing what He asks of me to do, keeping his commands? Stepping out of our comfort zone is uneasy. For me, I can equate that uneasiness to working out. I feel that tug at my mind when the workout is really hard and saying, just stop, you know you want to stop. But I know if I push through, the reward I will feel after the workout will be so much better for my mental and physical health. How I respond to God’s call for my life is similar to sometimes pulling me out of my comfort zone. It would be easier to ignore the messages and indulge my humanly wants rather than God’s commands. But when I do follow the call, it has proven itself easy and filled with God’s grace to make the path smooth and rewarding in so many ways.
Days have been very hard in 2020 and we all are facing challenges that seem too much to overcome. But it is through prayer, scripture and listening to what God calls for us to do that we will find our peace, well-being, and numberless descendants to carry forward God’s work on His planet.
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