Isaiah 25:8-9 “He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces; the rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; For the Lord has spoken. And it will be said in that day: ‘Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for Him: we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”
The following was written by my beautiful daughter, Anna...
Sometimes I get very, very scared.
(Teenager I may be, but I’ve noticed that just because I can sleep without a nightlight and I’m a foot and four inches taller than an emperor penguin does not mean I’m automatically incapable of being scared stiffer than a little girl during a thunderstorm. It just means I’ve gotten better at hiding it. J)
I’m not afraid of the dark (that is, I’m not more afraid of the dark than anyone else who’s ever watched Dr. Who and Shadows in the Library); likewise, I’m not afraid of Gollum or zombies or mummies or spiders. (Of course, just because I’m not afraid of them doesn’t mean I LIKE them.) Thing is, being older means you outgrow some of your more childish fears—and bingo, there’s a whole minefield of worse ones ahead of you. I think I’d prefer being scared of the dark, or scared of the the monster I could always just see peeking around my bedpost, then my current fears.
See, I get scared of God.
Or, more specifically, scared of His reaction to me. You know when people talk about “irrational” fears? (And believe me, when I was younger, I very, very quickly grew to hate that phrase. Who were they to say my fear of spiders or stinkbugs or Gollum peeking around my curtain was irrational??)
Well, I suppose this fear is as about as irrational as it can get—do I honestly think He put Himself through excruciating agony on the cross and descended into the depths of Hades and was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world (for me) , and after He went through all that, He’s just gonna throw me away now?
No, I don’t honestly think that, not when the sun is shining and I am rational and sane. But at night, when I’m in bed thinking through my day and everything I did wrong and how neglectful I was of Him, I’m not very rational. I love Him—not nearly as much as I ought, I’m positive, but I do, as much as I know how—and I want to be with Him and there are times when I can’t wait to get to heaven just so I can see Him in the flesh; there are times when Job 20:25-27 (“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth: And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!”) is the perfect expression of what my heart desires.
And that’s around when I get dead scared.
It’s a funny kind of scared—the best way to describe it is to quote a line from ‘The Horse and His Boy’ by C.S. Lewis, when Hwin (that’s a talking mare) goes up to Aslan and says, “I’d rather be eaten by you than fed by anyone else.” It’s sort of like that. I want to see Him, but I get afraid that when I do, He’ll reject me. He’ll see me for the miserable, rotten, filthy sinner I am (although, of course, He knew THAT about me since before time itself) and He’ll cast me off. And—paraphrasing Spurgeon here—if He dealt with me justly and not graciously, He would have let me burn long since.
And then, of course, I realize that being afraid of that is also doubting and base ingratitude…and round and round I go. Vicious cycle.
See, but it was during one of these cycles that I rediscovered this verse. And it calmed me right down.
I deserve death—that’s true enough—but He’s “swallowed it up forever’’. I grieve now, but one unforgettable day He’ll touch my cheek and wipe away the very last tear I’ll ever cry. He’ll erase my rebuke, my sin, from existence. I’m quite assured of that—“For the Lord has spoken.” It’s as much of a certainty as if it had already happened and been carved in stone. Knowing that, we’re able to say, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for Him: we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”
Isaiah 54 wraps this up nicely:
“Sing, O barren, you who have not borne! Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, you who have not labored with child! For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman,’ says the Lord. ‘Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings; Do not spare; Lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes. For you shall expand to the right and to the left, and your descendants will inherit the nations, and make the desolate cities inhabited. Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; neither be disgraced, for you will not be put to shame; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and will not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore. For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of Hosts is His name; and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He is called the God of the whole earth. For the Lord has called you like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a youthful wife when you were refused,’ says your God. ‘For a mere moment I have forsaken you, but with great mercies I will gather you. With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you,’ says the Lord, your Redeemer. ‘For this is like the waters of Noah to Me; for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah would no longer cover the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be angry with you, nor rebuke you. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,’ says the Lord, who has mercy on you. O you afflicted one, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay your stones with colorful gems, and lay your foundations with sapphires. I will make your pinnacles of rubies, your gates of crystal, and all your walls of precious stones. All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children. In righteousness you shall be established; you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it will not come near you. Indeed they shall surely assemble, but not because of Me. Whoever assembles against you shall fall for your sake. Behold, I have created the blacksmith who blows the coals in the fire, who brings forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the spoiler to destroy. No weapon formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from Me,’ says the Lord.”
