I know you feel it every day. The tedium of chronic illness, disability or isolation. Even when we don’t dwell on it, we feel it. It is there and affects every area of life. How can we be long-suffering and honor God in the midst? While today’s verses do not specifically mention long-suffering, they do give us hope in the midst of the long-suffering.
Do you feel it more in the winter when skies are grey? I will be honest, I do. Yet, in the midst of the grey, God sends sunshine. He sends glittering snow and watching neighbors make snowmen. It is beautiful.
Recently, I was listening to a webinar that told of this beauty in the darkness. They mentioned this passage, specifically verse 3. While I have read this passage before, I hadn’t really seen this until the webinar. (Emphasis below is mine.)
“45 Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;
2 I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:
3 And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.
4 For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.
5 I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none else.
7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”
Oh, do you see it? God gives light and treasure in the midst of our darkness. The hard is here. We live on this broken earth. Yet, God brings treasures and hidden riches. He calls us by name.
What an amazing God! What a precious God! Let’s watch for those treasures today!
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