THE LORD SPOKE (October 6)

Daily Reflections from Scripture:

Isaiah 49-51

The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught. The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears, and I have not been rebellious; I have not drawn back.... Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of his servant? Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. (Isaiah 50:4-5,10)

Does God ever wake you up in the morning with a message? Better yet, when God wakes you up in the morning, do you seek a message from His Word? Are you listening carefully to hear His voice and pick up on what He’s trying to tell you? When He “wakens your ear” do you resist in any way? When He shows you His way, do you draw back?

Can you start your day without seeking His face? Does it bother you to do so? Or, do you get through the whole day before noticing you left His presence behind?

The other half of listening to the Lord is talking to Him. Both are an essential part of our communion with Him. Isaiah certainly had a good balance in this area of his life and his book is full of both kinds of examples. Here’s something to ponder in the light of all this.


I Didn’t Have Time to Pray
Author unknown

I got up early one morning and rushed right into the day;
I had so much to accomplish I didn’t have time to pray.
Troubles just tumbled about me and heavier came each task.
Why doesn’t God help me, I wondered.
He answered, “You didn’t ask.”

I tried to come into God’s presence, I used all my keys at the lock.
God gently and lovingly chided, “Why, child, you didn’t knock.”
I wanted to see joy and beauty but the day toiled on grey and bleak.
I wondered why God didn’t show me.
He said, “You didn’t seek.”

I woke up early this morning and paused before entering the day.
I had so much to accomplish that I had to take time to pray.


Psalms 39-40

James says the same thing as the psalmist: “You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (Jas. 4:14). In David’s words, “each man is but a breath” (Ps. 39:5,11). Elsewhere he wrote, “Man is like a breath, his days are like a fleeting shadow” (Ps. 144:4). Job and Solomon likewise added their assent (Job 14:2; Eccl. 6:12).

But we knew it anyway - from our own experience. Life itself impresses upon us how fragile and how fleeting it is. A walk through any graveyard will put an exclamation point to that sentence. All those people - gone, and all but forgotten. Maybe an occasional faded plastic flower, baked in the sun. Not one in ten thousand has a biography written about him and not one in a thousand biographies are normally read by anyone. If you exclude the autobiographies, there’s not much at all that gets remembered by someone else. Even the Purple Hearts in a military cemetery are soon little more than a piece of fine congressional metal. Maybe we can remember which war they were in, but not much more.

Like Scrooge in Dickens’ story, we need to glance back from time to time and to peek ahead into the future a little. We need to fit our passing vapor into a larger context. We really need to discover for ourselves the lasting value of our life. We need to find an answer to that 60's question asked by the flower children: “Hey man, why am I here?”

1. I am here because God purposed it (vs. 9 - “for you are the one who has done all this”). The Sovereign Lord knows all things because He has determined all things. It is He who created me so any purpose that my life may have must spring from that.
2. My life has meaning because of Him (vs. 5 - “you have made my days”). Yes, it may be “a mere handbreadth” but it is the Eternal One who gave it to me. It may be “a mere phantom” but he has revealed that there is substance in things hoped for and evidence for things not seen (Heb. 11:1). Death does not end all. There is a life after life - and it’s the real one.
3. I will stake everything on Him (vs. 7 - “my hope is in you”). Nothing else in life provides a satisfactory answer. Finances are fleeting, wealth is wobbly, health the same. All my own foundations are weak and all my shelters leak. But I have learned that God is dependable. He alone can be trusted and never fails.

If Psalm 39 stood alone, we might still be left feeling like the pre-Christmas Scrooge. But Psalm 39 is followed by the glorious message of Psalm 40.

Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done. The things you planned for us no one can recount to you. (Ps. 40:5)