These are the words of Isaiah, prophet of the Sovereign LORD:
"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." Isaiah 50:4 NLT
So many of us in these trying times are feeling a sort of malaise or what might even be called depression. I believe it is what the Word of God labels as "weary."
We are all weary, are we not?
In my own area, added to the COVID19 uptick, the political and social unrest, the continued social distancing, whether forced or voluntary, we can also add the gale force winds of 88 miles per hour that prevailed all day long yesterday causing fires 30 miles south of us from downed electrical wires and forcing hundreds to be evacuated from their safe homes into hotels. Those same winds fueled a brush fire 45 miles north of us causing 12 families to lose their homes at this very precise time which we call the "holiday" season. None of this feels like a holiday. Few of us can find reason to celebrate.
How many families have lost loved ones this year, whether due to COVID19 or other causes? How many have lost everything in fires that raged out of control in so much of the world? What about the millions who have lost jobs and are barely hanging on financially? Or those who were unable to hang on and lost their businesses and maybe even their homes because of things so completely beyond their control?
What words of comfort to these, the weary, was Isaiah given from God?
Perhaps these:
"Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." Isaiah 53:12 NLV
To some, Isaiah's words might not appear to be all that comforting, maybe even a bit depressing. But I ask you to read them over again and I pray that the Lord will open your ears to hear the great encouragement to be found within this tiny yet powerful passage of Scripture.
Isaiah is speaking prophetically about that which the Messiah will endure in order to save His people (us, the transgressors) from their sins, from their wrong-doings which He knows they (we, the transgressors) are too weak to overcome.
Approximately seven hundred years later, the Messiah did exactly as Isaiah had prophesied through the prophetic words dictated to Isaiah by God Himself. And so the Messiah, Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus the Christ, the Anointed One, gave His life willingly in a final and everlasting atonement for our transgressions that only God Himself could do, because He was God, giving Himself in order to save His own creation (us) because no other sacrifice or offering or effort on the part of us humans was able to save us once and for all time.
Jesus, the Messiah, was and still is our only hope, as prescribed by the Father, God Almighty.
And so we are made strong, because Jesus took away our fear of the punishment we deserve when He suffered that punishment in our place.
We are strong because He took the fear of death away from us when He rose from the dead, pointing us to the truth about life after death, so that death is not final for us and everlasting life with Him is promised to those who will only believe His Word and trust in Him.
We are strong, even we are weary, because our strength is not of ourselves, but of Him, our Messiah, our Lord, our Savior, in whom we can trust completely, in spite of all that is happening around us.
We are strong, because when we are weary, we cry out to the only One who can help us. And He opens our ears to hear Him as He calls us His Beloved and strengthens us through this, our wearying journey, that leads us to our home with Him.
Blessed be the Name of the LORD in times such as these to which we have all been called, as we remain mindful of Him and continue to pray for one another.
