God is a master of surprises!

Deuteronomy 21; Psalms 108–109; Isaiah 48; Revelation 18

Every now and then I lose empathy for those who do not know Jesus and cannot relate to how they feel, what their emotions are or their struggles to figure out life without instruction from the Giver of life. And every now and then God dunks me into an experience to remind me of the woes of being in the dark concerning Him.

On Sunday, I prayed to be Spirit-filled, then spent the day ignoring the Lord. He was not happy with me and I was not happy — period. I confessed my selfishness but the sense of His loving presence was gone, not strong and joyful as it usually is. I felt abandoned and no matter my repentance, He left me in that dark and lonely place.

When I opened my Bible this morning, I expected to hear nothing and didn’t, until I read from Isaiah and realized that God was showing me the fate of those without Him, those who hear His voice and do not respond. Apart from the redemptive power of Jesus Christ, all peace is gone and all blessings withheld. These are His words to me:

You have never heard, you have never known, from of old your ear has not been opened. For I knew that you would surely deal treacherously, and that from before birth you were called a rebel. “For my name’s sake I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another. (Isaiah 48:8–11)

Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.” (Isaiah 48:17–19)

“There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.” (Isaiah 48:22)

This is why Jesus died — to forgive and cleanse the rebellious of heart. I am one of His children, wicked yet redeemed, beloved and destined to heaven. I mess up but Jesus died for all my sin and lives to guide me in the way that I should go. Sunday’s self-indulgence may not seem like much, even to another Christian, but God used it to show me what happens to those who resist Him; they don’t enjoy that eternal peace that cost Him His Son and cost me my stubborn pride.

There was a prelude to this. Last night I dreamt of a big house being furnished, particularly large rooms for each of my children. It was spotless, lovely, filled with laughter and harmony. When I dream of houses, they usually relate to actual life and thoughts of what is going on when I’m awake. This time, the dream signified hope and a promise, a touch of the Master’s hand who was making all things lovely, not black, dark, lonely and without peace.

That dream and the words from Isaiah restore my sense of God’s nearness. His Spirit clarifies what He wants me to understand. All sin, all selfishness, divides me from Him, my heart from His. He had something else for me to do on Sunday and I will never know what it was. At the same time, He knew I needed to remember the state that many people are in, the deep sense of being alone and without God, of being ‘wicked’ and not realizing that sin is measured in saying NO to God, no matter how large or small His request might be. He wanted me to ‘get it’ that the emptiness and sorrow they feel is not about the state of the world or the situations in their lives or their family’s lives; it is about the distance between them and the heart of God. It is about running their own life instead of letting Him in. This is not a happy place.

APPLY: I’ve no idea what God may ask of me today, but I’m far more tuned in than Sunday, and far more at peace than I deserve. Thank You. (Later: He gave me an hour on the phone with someone who is looking for that peace and helped me tell her how to find it. Amazing.)