Isaiah - Verse By Verse

Scripture:  Isaiah 8:17 (NIV):  "I will wait for the LORD, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob.  I will put my trust in him."

Thought:  To me, waiting for and trusting in the LORD are our great privileges.

Question:  Am I offended that God seems to hide His face from me?

"I will"...is a strong decision of the mind.  It is a determination, a setting of certainty.  It is an act of the will that reveals what we choose.  Here the prophet Isaiah, as a beautiful example to the Jews, sets his mind firmly on the LORD (Jehovah, God Almighty, Elohim, the three-in-one God).  He is determined to focus on no other being.  Even if it takes time to find this LORD, Isaiah "will wait"!  Even if this LORD "is hiding his face from the house of Jacob", Isaiah will still wait. 

God may hide His face from His people, especially when they are as disobedient as Judah was.  God cannot look upon or come near sin.  The sins of the people will separate them from God's "face", but individuals like Isaiah can firmly "will" to confess sin and nourish their faith by clinging to God's Word (see yesterday's blog).  

Isaiah also "wills" where he will place his trust:  "I will put my trust in him", that is, in the LORD.  These are two separate activities.  To wait is to linger until satisfied and to trust is to believe deeply that satisfaction will come.  The "satisfaction" I speak of is the peaceful rest of the heart and mind where the onslaught of the evil one cannot penetrate.  

The faith-walk is almost always the unseeing walk.  It often seems as though God is hidden.  To have reverential awe and fear-respect for someone obscure is an interesting challenge.  This is the challenge of Christianity.  We must keep on and persevere in this uniquely difficult effort of keeping faith.  We can keep on by "waiting" and "trusting".  These are primarily passive roles.  We may betray our faith by acting outside it, on our own, like sheep who wander away from the set norms of the flock.  To "wait" and "trust" means no "wandering away"!

Prayer:  Great LORD God, You are worthy of our trust and worth waiting for!  Help me to choose willfully to seek You, trust You and wait for You alone.  Strengthen me to this task even though everyone else around me may choose to sin instead.  Amen.  

• Main
• archives
• Albums
• Links
• Admin
• Send us a story!
• Summary-Blog Directory

• Isaiah - Day 183
• Isaiah - Day 182
• Isaiah - Day 181
• Isaiah - Day 180
• Isaiah - Day 179
• Isaiah - Day 178
• Isaiah - Day 177
• Isaiah - Day 176
• Isaiah - Day 175
• Isaiah - Day 174

• General [338]

• RSS 0.90
• RSS 1.0
• RSS 2.0
• Atom