Saturday, September 17: Isaiah 21- An unenviable job.

How many days has it been that Isaiah has been speaking God’s judgments against various nations? How many?  Seven, ten??  I don’t even want to go back and count. My thoughts slide back to Isaiah’s call. I remember God saying Isaiah’s call would be a difficult task, one given to declaring God’s displeasure. I went back and reread chapter 6:9-14. Isaiah’s call was to be a difficult one and it certainly has been hard for me to read judgment after judgment. I can only imagine how difficult it was to speak judgment after judgment.

Some of us, like Isaiah and Jeremiah, receive calls from God that are difficult, taxing and just plain hard. Others have easier more fruit-filled calls. That decision is God’s and God’s alone. Some of us are salves for healing, others swords of judgment. Our task is to do what God asks us to do and go where God asks us to go.

Two days ago I received an email from a friend serving in Africa. On a trip to take their children to the dentist (four hours away), they were waiting in the dentist office when a bomb exploded less than a block away. On the way home they were stopped at a road check when a truck traveling in the other direction couldn’t stop and nearly killed them and many others. Why do they live with heaviness and difficulty like that? All I and they can say is that is God’s call… and I add they are living out God’s call faithfully.

I don’t know your situation and you don’t know mine.  The ponder point for the day is simply this for me. Am I living out faithfully God’s call? Are you?  It really is of no consequence if my life and situation is easy or hard. what matters is, am I faithful to what God asks of me?

Lord, I long to be faithful. I hope and pray I am faithful to You and You, alone. Like Isaiah in chapter six, I pray, “Here am I, send me, use me… wherever and however You please.” For Your glory I live and pray. Amen.