Monday Morning Cover to Cover

Both of our daughters ended up in the hospital ER this week. A teary DC phone call at 3:30AM last night from Blair shouted out that there was something very wrong with her shoulder---a kayaking experience gone wrong. Brooke continued to have issues all week with pain from her Thailand address. Pray for my girls that they get the help they need. They're in His Hands. We don't know how God will answer prayers for our health, our jobs....but, a verse that has meant much to me this week is Isaiah 40:4. We do know how God will answer all our prayers to know HIM. He will lift up every valley in your life; every mountain will be made low to reveal His Glory to you. Every obstacle to knowing HIM will be removed as we return and repent and respond to the Holy One!

There were 105 passages of Scripture that I wrote down that touched places in my heart this week as we read the Bible chronologically. So how do I start? I love the book of Isaiah! And there is no way to write about that many, so I'll share a few that still linger with me. Leave a comment about what lingered with you and link us up to your blog. This isn't about gaining a bunch of inaugural knowledge or striking insights. No, it's all about finding and connecting with our Maker, our Husband. Isaiah 54:5. He's a sovereign God Who is coming!

Yes, Isaiah 33 opened with encouragement to be strong in our distress for He is the Stability of our times (33:6). And your God WILL COME to give you water in your wilderness and streams in your desert (35:3) and blind eyes will open, deaf ears unstop, and those of us lame will leap and those mute will shout. Here's your highway, a "Way of Holiness." And the ransomed will return. It means we are confronted with the Holy One!

Hezekiah knew those words and in Isaiah 38:5-6, the king turned and wept bitterly as Isaiah delivered the news that his disease was fatal, soon to steal him of his breath. "Must I be robbed in the prime of my life?" 38:10---do we ask the same question when tragedy befalls us? God heard his cries and gave Hezekiah 15 more years to live. Sounds like the answer we want when we face tragic health reports. But what did Hezekiah do with those 15 years? 2Chron 32:25 says he missed his God and became proud in his heart. When God gives us a second chance, what do we do with it? All I can do is deal with this present moment that I have from God. Deal with my stuff in the fray of my own heart, not with what others are doing to me.

In Chapter 40, the One Who measures the waters, marks the heavens, and displays the starry hosts is your Shepherd Who gently gathers, leads, and carries you close to His Heart (40:11). Am I resisting being carried close? So, why do we say: My way is hidden/disregarded by my God? Hezekiah thought God didn't notice. I guess we think God gives us the life we want here on earth---great husbands, obedient children, happy days, the good life. Isaiah 48:2 says we are citizens of a holy city and are to rely only on God not on our being happy here.

And then comes the offer of God's Hand. I will take your right hand and help you (41:13). Sometimes we are so low we can only reach up to touch the hem of His garment. That's where I've been the past couple of years, so low to the ground. God says in this chapter that He will make rivers flow, springs in our valley, water in our desert. He so is doing that for me!!! I'll take your hand and keep you and give light in your darkness--- that we might know it is the Hand of God in the midst of our circumstances. And I'll make you light to free other people stuck in their world, sitting in their darkness.

The LORD is marching as a warrior in your hearts. Stirring up zeal (42:13). A bruised reed HE will not break (42:3). Leading us down unfamiliar paths, turning our dark days into light, our rough places smooth so that we don't trust idols like great marriages, good children, perfect worlds. We have used the wood that is made for burning as an idol---half what it was meant to accomplish; half for what we want to tip our hat and bow down to (44:15).

We've seen many things and paid no attention (42:20). We didn't take to heart against WHOM we have sinned (42:25). Yet when we pass through the waters, we won't drown (43:2). You are precious in HIS SIGHT and LOVED (43:4), created for HIS GLORY (43:7).

Don't dwell on the past...I am doing a NEW THING, making a way for you in your desert. And it was at this point in the readings this week, that I broke down and just wept. You see, I wish I could change some things about my past but I can't. And my God is so showing up and doing a new thing in my life and I am so grateful to HIM for smoothing my mountains (45:2). So grateful for sustaining, carrying, rescuing me to my old age (46:4). He won't forget me though others have forgotten whom I held close. No, God will never forget me for I am engraved on the palm of His Hands (49:15).

Abandon my quarrel with my Maker (45:11) Who counsels God, Bev (40:13). Do I want to give God a piece of my mind? He is testing me in the furnace of affliction (48:10) and my Redeemer is saying: I teach you what is best for you. I direct you in the way to go. Pay attention and your peace will be like a river (48: 17,18). What is due me is in God's Hands (49:4) not for me to decide what is best for me.

My God's Arm is not too short (50:2). Am I living today thinking my lack of strength is due to His short arm? My Sovereign LORD gives me an instructed tongue and sustains me with His Word. He woke us all up this morning to LISTEN (50:4). So, I'll stop what I'm doing. I'll set my face like a flint (50:7). Though I walk in the dark with little light (50:10), and some of you with no light, I will rely only on HIM to help me. For there is something inside of me that desperately needs to change and I can't do it without His Work. Don't light your own fires (50:11). Trust only in the name of our good Sovereign LORD. Come closer those who are thirsty (55:1). Seek HIM while He may be found. Call while HE is near. (55:6). Forsake your ways/your thoughts for HIS. For His Word will never come back to you empty (55:11). Never.