Colossians 1:15-17 (Isaiah 40:26-31) Christ is the image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see … Everything was created through him and for him … and he holds all creation together.
It makes sense that Jesus the Creator is called Wonderful Counselor (Isaiah 9:6): the one who makes something knows best how it functions and how to care for it!
Matthew 12:17-21 (Isaiah 42:1-4) This fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah concerning Jesus: “Look at my Servant whom I have chosen. He is my Beloved, who pleases me. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not fight or shout or raise his voice in public. He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle. Finally he will cause justice to be victorious. And his name will be the hope of all the world.
I love this description of Jesus, bringing justice with the gentleness that comes with true strength, a love song the Father sings over his son, whom he sees and profoundly knows. It’s a glimpse into the tender affection shared by the Trinity from before time—a relationship that we, incredibly, are invited into.
Isaiah 53:3 He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
The name “A Man of Sorrows” continues this blog’s series on the book of Isaiah. I’m happy that Isaiah 53 fell on this day. I’m comforted knowing that in the grief so many of us experience more acutely in this holiday season, Jesus comes to us as a man personally acquainted with sorrow. We can come to him just as we are—laying aside our jolly holiday masks—and know that he gets it and walks with us through these bittersweet days.
Isaiah 52:6 I will reveal my name to my people, and they will come to know its power. Then at last they will recognize that I am the one who speaks to them.”
Advent begins tomorrow, December 3, and continues until Sunday December 24. Advent means “coming.” These four weeks are set apart in some Christian traditions for reflection on Jesus’ first coming (which we celebrate at Christmas) and to prepare for his second coming, whenever that may take place.
As part of my own observance of Advent, I’ve been thinking about the names and attributes of God in Isaiah, and particularly the names of Jesus. I’ve devised an Advent ABC to share with you each day of Advent with a simple format: One of Jesus’ or his Father’s names, a single verse of Scripture, a two or three-sentence reflection, and a hymn or carol with that theme.
If you experience even a part of the profound worship I have enjoyed preparing this series, I will be thrilled. I hope it will deepen and enrich your focus on the One who left heaven’s glory to take on our fragility, our brokenness, our sorrows, our temptations. Across the universe, through all time, there has never been anyone like him, or a greater mystery.
Isaiah 51:7, 12 Listen to me, you who know right from wrong, you who cherish my law in your hearts. Do not be afraid of people’s scorn, nor fear their insults.… I, yes, I, am the one who comforts you. So why are you afraid of mere humans, who wither like the grass and disappear?
People-pleasing gets a bad rap. Here’s the first definition that popped up when I googled “people pleaser”: “Generally, it describes a person who consistently strives to please others, often sacrificing their own wants or needs in the process.” The Medical News Today article goes on to discuss signs, risks, and how to stop.
Shutterstock: Ariya J
So I wonder, how does this perspective—people-pleasing is a bad thing that we should stop—line up with Scriptures like John 10:11, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep”? And 1 John 3:16, “We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters”?
Isaiah 50:4-5, 10 The Sovereign Lord has given me his words of wisdom, so that I know how to comfort the weary. Morning by morning he wakens me and opens my understanding to his will. The Sovereign Lord has spoken to me, and I have listened. … If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of light, trust in the Lord and rely on your God.
Psalm 46:10 Be still and know that I am God.
This will be a busy week. For you, too?
That’s why I had to lie in bed long enough this morning to be still and listen to the Lord, to reflect on the looong list of blessings he has poured into my life (including a wonderful trip to eastern PA and New Jersey to visit beloved friends–we got home last night). Long enough to verbalize that I want to walk through this week with joy and thankfulness instead of stress.
Focused listening isn’t always easy. The last post, I made two confessions. Here’s another:
Sometimes when my husband is talking to me at length about his day, the people he has talked with, the plans he has made with them, the conundrums he faces, I let my own thoughts and concerns distract me.
Later, when he references a prior conversation, I may have only a vague idea of what he’s talking about.
Does this matter? It certainly does when he is asking for my perspective on a situation he believes I already understand because of what he has explained to me before. If I’m to give him any kind of useful feedback, I have to admit my failure to listen and request another explanation—not optimal for him or for me. Or for finding a solution to whatever the current dilemma may be.
How often do I treat God the same way? Let my mind be so busy with my own “stuff” that I fail to hear what he wants to say to me.
A lovely counselor, teacher, and pray-er name Leanne Payne (you can find her books on the internet) used to say, “Listen to the word of love God is always speaking to you.”
My experience bears this out. God is always communicating with us. Are we stopping to listen? Have we learned to quiet our own thoughts enough to hear his still, small voice?
Lying in bed after I wake up in the morning, to hear God’s voice in the stillness, has become a habit. It anchors me into his love. It doesn’t take the place of my “quiet time,” when I read Scripture and pray. Rather, it allows me to benefit from what he has to say to me, without concern yet for what I want to say to him. This focused listening usually results in deep gratitude.
Granted, I have many advantages: an “empty nest”—no children needing my attention early in the morning. No job where I need to punch a clock. No longer the need to get up to check vital signs, administer IV antibiotics, TPN, and fluids, change dressings, attend to hygiene, and drive Karis to the hospital by 6:30 a.m. for clinic. And because I naturally wake up around 5:00, I feel the “right” to spend these moments in bed just listening.
You may not have any of these luxuries.
But unless we figure out some way to make space for stillness in our busy lives (driving to work? cleaning house? taking a walk? taking a few minutes after the kids are in bed?), we miss so much of what the Lord wants to say, to encourage us, to give us clarity about our struggles, to remind us that HE is sovereign, not us. He’s got the whole world in HIS hands. He can dispel anxiety and darkness in our souls with his rays of hope and peace and thankfulness—if we’re still in his presence long enough!
Isaiah 49:3-4, 6The Lord said to me, “You are my servant, and you will bring me glory.” I [Isaiah] replied, “But my work seems so useless! I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose. Yet I leave it all in the Lord’s hand; I will trust God for my reward.” … And now God says, “I will make youa light to the Gentiles, and you will bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
Matthew 5:14-16 [Jesus said] “You are the light of the world … Let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.”
Philippians 2:14-16 Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people, holding firmly to the word of life.
My just-turned-one granddaughter Juliana watches and tries to imitate everything her older sister Liliana does. The second Lili chooses a toy, that’s the one Juju wants. Yesterday Lili climbed into an empty box pretending it was a train car. Of course, Juju immediately had to climb in too, though she had ignored the box until that moment.
It made me think, “Who am I trying to copy? Who sets the standard of behavior for me?”
A confession:
I sometimes get angry and complain about people who don’t know God because they behave like they don’t know God.
How nonsensical is that?
Another confession:
I sometimes feel outrage at people who claim the name of Christ yet speak and live as if they don’t know God’s love and have never taken seriously Jesus’s command to show that love to the world.
But do I look and act any different from the people I judge?
The Lord calls me back, with words like James 1:19-21 and 26, Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. “Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires … If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless.”
The conversation between God and Isaiah in chapter 49 is one you, like me, have probably had with God at times of discouragement. But the dialogue becomes more interesting as we continue reading, because it seems God is not talking just to Isaiah, but more profoundly, with his own son, Jesus, the true light to the Gentiles. After all, Simeon prophesied over the infant Jesus, “He is a light to reveal God to the nations” (Luke 2:32).
That’s NOT how Paul and Barnabas interpreted Isaiah 49:6, however! In Acts 13:46-47, they tell a crowd in Antioch of Pisidia, “We will offer the word of God to the Gentiles. For the Lord gave us this command when he said, ‘I have made you a light to the Gentiles, to bring salvation to the farthest corners of the earth.’”
So, it’s a partnership, right? Because it’s the light of Jesus shining in our hearts that we are to reflect to others (2 Corinthians 4:5-7).
Today I’m asking myself, how am I personally doing with being a light and revealing God? If this question doesn’t humble me, nothing will. I invite you, as I am doing today, to read and pray carefully throughRomans 12. I think it’s a great description of what living differently looks like.
I’m asking the Lord to shine his light into my soul to reveal my shortcomings, convict me of my need for him, root out my self-righteousness, and fill me with his compassion. I want to imitate the Lord. I want him to be my model. And I want to notice and learn from the ways people in my life reflect his light according to the standards of Romans 12.
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you … (Romans 12:2)
Isaiah 48:12-13, 17-18 “Listen to me … I alone am God, the First and the Last. It was my hand that laid the foundations of the earth, my right hand that spread out the heavens above. When I call out the stars, they all appear in order. … I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is good for you and leads you along the paths you should follow. Oh, that you had listened to my commands! Then you would have had peaceflowing like a gentle river and righteousness rolling over you like waves of the sea.”
Jeremiah 9:24 “Those who wish to boast should boast in this alone: that they truly know me and understand that I am the Lord who demonstrates unfailing love and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth, and that I delight in these things. I, the Lord, have spoken!”
Matthew 5:43-45 [Jesus said] You have heard the law that says, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say, love your enemies! … In that way you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.
Peace flowing like a gentle river reminds me of the delightful days our family spent on a boat on the Rio Negro (a branch of the Amazon) in 1998, our son’s choice for his “family senior trip” before he graduated from high school and moved from Brazil to the U.S. for college. We discovered there weren’t even mosquitos to trouble us in the middle of that wide, peaceful river! (It averages 8,040 feet wide!) For more adventure, we had to venture into one of the more turbulent tributaries.
Remember the 2005 Jars of Clay song, “They Will Know We Are Christians by Our Love”? Isaiah links soul-peace, shalom, to following God’s commands. And Jesus clarified for us that the most important commands are to love God and love each other.
Like me, I’m sure you flinch when you hear people link hateful, UN-loving language and actions to the name of our precious Lord Jesus.
And, like me, you then say, “Lord, please show me any ways my own un-loving attitudes and choices bring dishonor to your name.”
Because when I empty myself of anger, hurt, bitterness, hatred, shame, and resentment by naming them and asking the Holy Spirit to cleanse and heal me, I create space for him to grow in me his multi-faceted fruit of love (Galatians 5:22-23). And his peace flows through my soul. I’ve had to practice this a lot, and it’s worth it, because that’s the way I want to live.
Our longing for the Spirit’s shalom, his holistic wellbeing, permeating all aspects of our lives, reflects God’s deep desire for each of us. The Lord told Jeremiah to tell us that he delights in these things. Harmony with him results in the kind of peace that bubbles with the creative energy of goodness, energy for building others up rather than tearing them down. For healing rather than harming.
Listen with me to Joni Eareckson Tada sing “When Peace Like a River.” Her passion and generosity to others with disabilities tell me no circumstances are incompatible with God’s peace—certainly not mine.
Isaiah 47:8, 10-11 “Listen to me, you pleasure-loving kingdom, living at ease and feeling secure. You say, ‘I am the only one, and there is no other.’ … But your ‘wisdom’and ‘knowledge’ have led you astray, and you said, ‘I am the only one, and there is no other.’ So disaster will overtake you, and you won’t be able to charm it away …”
Psalm 40:1-3 [David sang] I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the Lord.
“Bottom line, it’s all about me. I deserve comfort and security, happiness and pleasure. I should put myself first in the choices I make. I deserve this.”
Last Friday on a delightful tramp through the autumn woods with my son Dan (20,000 steps!), I laughed over the relentless message in our culture that I should prioritize “self-care.” How do I know that choosing this afternoon to abandon my to-do list and everyone else’s concerns and just enjoy the beauty of fall and the heartening company of my son isn’t my first step down a slippery slope to self-centered hedonism?
Part of the trail at Harrison Hills Park lies along the edge of a bluff above the Allegheny River.
Dan grinned and told me he had just read a book (here’s a review) about substitutes for faith, ways people choose to meet their needs for purpose, significance, community, and ritual when they don’t want “religion.” The author identifies self-care and wellness culture as one of those ways—literally, a substitute for God, what Scripture calls an idol.
I mused that maybe spontaneously taking off one workday afternoon a year might not result in total self-indulgence. Dan said he wouldn’t worry even if I did so once a week. Hmmm…
How do we find the balance between obsessive self-focus and appropriate care of our own bodies and souls? I would love to know your thoughts about this! I suspect it has to do with Who or what is primary in our lives. What matters most to you? What does it mean in practice to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love others as we love ourselves (Mark 12:30/Luke 10:27)?
Yesterday I read the last pages of a book I’ve mentioned before, To Be Told, by Dan B. Allender, a psychologist who has devoted his life to the healing of abuse survivors. To my surprise, he addressed the topic of this post. He describes becoming a hilarious giver, passing “payment” forward of a debt to God we can never repay, and says we are indebted even to those who did us harm—“I am a debtor to those who sexually abused me because they aroused in me fury and defiance against injustice.” He then reminds us of a basic premise of this book, that we co-author our stories with God, for purposes greater and more joy-filled than just ourselves.
Here’s a taste of what Allender says in this last chapter:
“We are not our own; we are God’s. We invest in another when we see ourselves as uniquely privileged and available to join his or her story. Gabriel Marcel speaks of ‘availability’ as a ‘being who is ready for anything, the opposite of him who is occupied or cluttered up with himself.’ Not to be cluttered with oneself means that we have first embraced our life as God’s story, whether we understand or even like what he has written. Further, not to be cluttered with oneself is toembrace enough of our story to say to God and to others, ‘He is good. And he has written me well.’
“And perhaps even more, being uncluttered calls me to wrestle with those stories that confuse me, the stories I continue to hold at arm’s length. We will never be fully at ease with our story, but we can come to love our story profoundly and with more joy. Finally, to be uncluttered is to offer all of who we are, even the parts that are still unredeemed, for the redemption of others … What we give away often returns with greater goodness than what we originally gave.
“Will I receive from [Christ’s] wounded hands my day’s portion of story, and will I bring my tears and battered questions for him to engage? Will I bring my story to the gospel and cry out for him to answer? And will I offer my broken story as a gift to others to taste and see that God is both odd and good? If I will do this, then the gift that I receive will stagger me—God’s story will be my own.”
Like the boy who offered his lunch to Jesus and saw it multiplied to feed thousands of people. Like David, who wrote his “new song” so that three thousand years later, we can be encouraged. Like my friend who offers hope and skills to other trauma survivors through her DBT classes because of her hard work facing into the confusing and painful parts of her own story. Like my friend who regularly shares her own story of alcoholism to encourage other strugglers through her leadership in AA. Like so many others I admire and learn from.
Today, I am offering my story back to God, not just my personal story, but Facing the Faeries 1906 as well, which I fully believe he coauthored with me. I deeply desire he use this complex, multi-entwined story to nurture and hearten others.
Isaiah 46:2-4, 8-9 [The Lord says] “Both the idols and their owners are bowed down. The gods cannot protect the people, and the people cannot protect the gods. They go off into captivity together. Listen to me. I have cared for you since you were born. Yes, I carried you before you were born. I will be your God throughout your lifetime—until your hair is white with age. I made you and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you. … Do not forget this! Keep it in mind! Remember the things I have done in the past. For I alone am God! I am God and there is none like me.”
Romans 8:38 Nothing can ever separate us from God’s love.
“Reader! When you write my story, be sure to tell what God did for me today. Only God could have done this. I want everyone everywhere to know there is nothing and no one else like Him for us to depend on. I want my experience to show others how much He cares for them too. Grief and pain can blind us to God’s presence and love—I know. But He is walking with us, each one of us.”
Comments like this one began showing up in Karis’s journals when she was a teenager, as did her comment, “All I see is grace.” Pain and grief were abundant in her life, but greater and deeper was her confidence in God’s care for her. “We’re all the same,” I heard her say again and again. “None of us can do life by ourselves. Each one of us needs the Lord to carry us through. Maybe it’s just a little more obvious for me.”
Karis “carried” by her brother and friends in high school
Isaiah 46, “I made you and I will care for you,” is at the heart of my novels, too. My deepest desire is that they will give readers hope, hope for God’s presence and care to undergird their own lives and struggles and challenges.
In 2016, Jen Wilkin published a beautiful little book called None Like Him, taking the title from Isaiah 46:9. The subtitle is Ten Ways God Is Different from Us (and Why That’s a Good Thing). I plan to re-read it this fall and encourage you to read it as well, in preparation for your celebration of Christmas. I would love to hear how it expands your understanding of God and his care for you!
Debra Kornfield 