"If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea." (Isa. 48:18)
If only. Those two words are small in their grammatical placement but enormous in their tragic implications. They mean that things could have been different. Much different. They mean that if the response of God's people had been other than it was, much heartache could have been avoided. Blessing would have flowed, but it didn't. If only.
Like Isaiah, we've spoken them, too. Everyone has regrets. That's part of living in a fallen world. We know if we had been more diligent and faithful, our lives today could be radically different than they turned out. Even if we're happy right now, we wonder what could have been and what would have been. Why? Because sooner or later we come to a melancholy realization: Life can always be better.
We seek the God of comfort to tell us why bad things have happened - why we're in debt, why we lost our job, why our family isn't a happy one, why our dreams aren't fulfilled. But deep down we know. It isn't because God let us down; it's because we let Him down. We didn't live up to His instructions. That dreaded rebellious streak that we all seem to have has led us in futile directions contrary to the explicit teaching of our Maker. We don't know what we were thinking when we went away from Him, but we want to come back. His plan is better; we know that now. We want to be restored to a place of peace like a river and righteousness like the sea.
That's the beauty of the gospel of grace. It never puts us in an unredeemable position. Whenever we say, "If only," God says, "Now you can." Maybe there are lost years, but they are past. God can redeem them for a bountiful future. The important thing is that we've learned that His voice is not demanding for His own ego but insistent for our own good. We can follow Him with trust that His way leads to peace and righteousness. We must follow Him with that trust. If we can, we'll be blessed. If only.
speaking from experience, it can and will fall completely apart in an instance when we do not adhere to his teachings. By it. I mean family, and life in general. I turned my back on God and his word, only to have life as I knew it, as I wanted it, to fall apart.
ReplyDeleteI not only turned my back on him, I ignored everything I had learned, Everything that I knew, yet I could not seem to humble myself before him. I knew the prophecey but still I did not bend a knee until my life as I knew it had comepletely crumbled before me. In an instance it was gone, In a second it seemed everything I had gained was as dust blown away by the wind. I bent my knees and payed to the Father through the Son to restore my broken home. I still pray every day. But it's too late I fear. Now he leads me down another road. A road lined not with my possessions of the past, but with things that are new. I walked into his church for the first time in years, and they all knew why I came. The people all seemed to know that I had waisted my family life, and when it went away, I fell back to what I knew. What I had learned years ago. When it all fell away, I begged for it back. Even for just a few minutes. Please let me have it back. I continue to pray, to go to his church and ask for my family back. It will come. I have faith that a better life will come, but it comes much slower than when it blew away.
You're right. It's like I wrote in one of my other posts: For us, time is of the essence, but for God, time is essential; meaning, He'll do things His own way in His own time. Human nature dictates that we will inevitably turn from God. We've been doing it for thousands of years, all the way back to Isaiah when the nation of Israel kept doing it over and over again. But God takes those things away to draw us back to Him. And it works every time. It's when we're closer to Him that we feel that peace. It goes hand-in-hand. That's the beauty of it. He is ALWAYS calling us back. Something to leave you with: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." (Psa. 37:4)
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