Grains of Sand

my2ndheartbeat (Google Images) Isaiah 30 is just one of many exposés on the heart. The record we have of Israel’s constant struggle with God reminds us so much of our struggles. God shows us one path and we follow another. The results are inevitably disastrous. The chapter is titled Woe to the Obstinate Nation and contains a litany of complaints on the part of God directed to a people who insisted on finding their courage, strength, help, salvation, in all the wrong places. When we come to verses 15 to 18 we find the summary. This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee! You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift! A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountai...

Google Images You can almost hear His heart break. “ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing ” (Matthew 23:37). A historian would have known what Jesus was referring to as He looked over the city during that last week before the journey to the cross. The Lord knew all the details of that history because He had been there during the period recorded for us as the Old Testament. He knew how often the nation called by His Name had rejected its God and His messengers. History was about to repeat itself once more. The picture in this verse is one of the most poignant in Scripture; and the only maternal image of God that we have. Our most intimate view of God is as our Father. But here Jesus described the image of a mother protecting her young even at the cost of her own life. But then the shocking statement: “ ...but you w...