Journey of the Word

“I know you can teach me the right way to go, but I don’t want to hear it. I like my wrong way much better. So please, just tell me things that sound good, even if they’re untrue.”

These statements would be unbelievable if I hadn’t heard many hearts declare them. If I hadn’t become accustomed to the world around me chanting this theme my whole life, I might have thought it relegated to Old Testament folklore.

Because who on earth sees truth, wisdom, and success, and says, “No, thanks. I’d rather hear lies, accept foolishness, and become a miserable failure”?

. . . those who see only two scenes in front of them and would rather have their own name in the credits, that’s who. Those who would rather trade True Satisfaction to live their vapor of a life with its cheap imitation.

Never mind that we have eternity to live with the consequences.

So here we are, 21st-century America.

Copies of the Scriptures fill our shelves, and gospel-preaching churches abound. Oh, but that’s hard stuff to hear, and why wait for heaven when you can “get rich quick”? So we stuff the Bibles in a corner {or keep them dusted on the coffee table for impressions’ sake} and give up on biblical churches and biblical preaching and biblical living, because that biblical stuff is no fun.

We take the fork in the road and follow smooth things and illusions. You know – the Joel Osteens and Jen Hatmakers of the world who must be doing something right – I mean, look how many successful, happy people are on that path!

Before long, oppression feels good, and perversion seems nice and fine. We’ve happily chosen the path of destruction, and we know it. The path that’s so wide and popular, and appears so free and glorious for a time.

But ends suddenly.

Like a damaged wall on the verge of collapse – it crumbles in an instant, with the force of a clay pot being smashed to bits.

Wake up, world, for this is the demise that awaits us.

And while we turn our ear, refusing to listen, the Holy One says, “All you have to do is return to me. And when you find me, all you have to do is surrender. And while you’re resting at my feet in peace and quiet, I’ll put things in order and save you and give you strength to love the Word and not despise it.”

Every time you find a rebellious heart, whether it be across the table, in the pages of Scripture, or in the crevices of your own soul, you’ll find the God of Justice waiting to be gracious.

For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord; who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”

Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, “Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them, therefore this iniquity shall be to you, like a breach in a high wall, bulging out, and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant; and its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.”

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.

from Isaiah 30

 [image credit: pixabay.com]