Observation: to Judahite people exiled in Babylon, the school of Isaiah writes words of hope. If God could lead them home through the Red Sea, God can lead them home from Babylon.
Application: I've heard it said that the best predictor of future behavior is past precedent. Every day, weather forecasting gets more effective as more computers have more data to know how similar weather patterns have behaved in the past. And yet so often we are more optimistic with people we know: just because they hurt me in the past, does that mean they'll hurt me again? Well, maybe not...
For believers in God, the same principle holds true. For us as humans, we've sinned every day in the past, so the smart money's on us sinning today. But for God, who delivered God's people from Egypt, from Babylon, from sin, from death, we can absolutely trust God will deliver us from whatever temporary situation we're facing. You can take that to the bank. God's done it before, and will do it again.
Prayer: God, thank you for your track record as we find it in Scripture and our faith tradition. Help us to trust in the great things you've done in the past, that we might be brave to face great problems today. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment