“Like birds hovering overhead,
the Lord Almighty will shield Jerusalem
he will shield it and deliver it,
he will ‘pass over’ it and will rescue it.”
~Isaiah 31:5 (NIV).
Little passages full of hope intersperse the chapters, some marked by oracles of doom and gloom, before the ‘Book of Comfort’ starts at chapter 40 of Isaiah.
In today’s context, we individually and collectively as the church, are ‘Jerusalem
The Lord Watches
We can imagine as those birds hover overhead what their view is.
God it is that oversees us and passes continually over us. God sees all, and not just the things we’d hope God wouldn’t see. For every injustice we’re on the receiving end of, God sees, and God commends us in our repose of humility.
The Lord Shields
Psalm 91:4 it is that sends forth the concept of God’s faithfulness as that ever-reliable shield for us.
This shield is not ‘rescuing’ us from our own situations—the challenges real to life—but it is assisting us as we approach and endure them, learning as we go. This is the rescue of the Lord beyond any rescue like it.
The Lord Delivers
We’re fooled for thinking God will miraculously lift us out of the mire of our own circumstances; fooled, dismayed and disappointed are we, with God.
That’s a reprehensible faith, right there. However, as is the grace of God, we’re forgiven, for we’re all found contemptible more often than we’d comfortably reflect later on.
God delivers us right where we are, most often, without changing things. God is changing our hearts toward these situations—that’s how we’re delivered. It’s the sort of delivery that conquers the mightiest thing against us... it’s an invincible mode of delivery.
God is proving faithful via our own faithfulness to God—both are interdependent on each other.
© 2010 S. J. Wickham.
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