Anticipated Joy

Isaiah 55:10-13

[10] “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
[11] so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

[12] “For you shall go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
[13] Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall make a name for the LORD,
an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” (ESV)

How often I run to Isaiah the prophet for his historic and ancient words of truth and comfort.

The trending storylines of this crooked and perverse generation are draining. Just about any media source I look at, the narrative is negative. And indeed, there is not as much fake about this news as we would hope.

Death surrounds us in many ways.... and life is cheapened in the process.

Drug overdoses, terrorist attacks, rising suicide rates, abortion on demand, and senseless gun violence is enough to make even the greatest optimists shiver in the dark.

It makes Malcolm Muggeridge look like a prophet of old:

Thus did Western Man decide to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, himself blowing the trumpet that brought the walls of his own city tumbling down, and having convinced himself that he was too numerous, labored with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer. Until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keeled over--a weary, battered old brontosaurus--and became extinct.” 

― Malcolm Muggeridge, Vintage Muggeridge: Religion and Society

So stop and go back up and re-read the promise of God......

He promises that His word will shower the land and bring forth fruit in the same way that rain and snow nourishes the seeds of life.

And we wait on this.... an anticipated joy...

peace- singing- clapping- restoration

Can you cling to this hope in the midst of a world that at time strains in the shadows of sin and suffering?

There seems to be the sense that when all seems lost, God BREAKS out into sudden celebration and victory.

It won't be a gradual win, it will be a sudden eruption.

I don't know how many times in your life you have been looking defeat straight in the jaws of inevitability and found an surprise turn of events that resulted in a crazy victory... but it does happen.

Buzzer beater, miraculous endings, strange change, unexpected

This is my anticipated joy... a guarantee... not based on my futile faith...but on God's Word.