For Sunday, February 18th, 2024 Sunday Meditation

For Sunday, February 18th, 2024

Sunday Meditation --When your diet is the bread of adversity and your drink is the water of affliction.

Meditation on 

Isaiah 30:20-21: "Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, "This is the way. Walk in it."

A fellow believer who often finds themselves in the role of spiritual advisor to me offered a real gem as advice.  That advice was to, “Whenever reading scripture, be especially attentive to words or verses that jump, or stand out at you, or cause you to pause in your reading”, that this is often a way the Holy Spirit employs to bring our attention to a lesson to be learned, or a message from God that we need to be aware of.  So it was when I was reading in Isaiah chapter 30:20 and 21, "Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction…

I love the word “Though”, I once wrote a poem with that as the title.  “Though '' carries a sense of cross-grain contrariness.  Though my boat is falling apart around me and there is little or no hope for rescue, I continue to man my station (rowing) because my heart (not my intellect) tells me that my master was still on board, walking the deck.  My master, who just by lifting a finger could calm the waves, stop the rain, and still the winds was still piloting the broken ship and not calming the tempest.  The poem stops too soon for me to have gone into making the point that I was at peace with the situation as “Alive or dead, either way, I’m with Christ -(Paul). I hope readers can see that in the last line of the poem at the bottom of this post.

It seems incredulous to a believer that the God we pray to for deliverance from pain and misfortune may actually be the source and perpetrator of the long convoy carrying the makings of the adverse events we find delivered to our doorstep daily.  We all know of someone or we ourselves, have  filled the role of Bad Luck Bob, the guy who, “if it weren’t for bad luck, wouldn’t have no luck at all”.  When the thought that all the misfortunes, bad breaks, and the uninterrupted series of unfortunate events that have dogged your steps and tested your faith, have in fact been by the very hand of the God whom you have prayed so earnestly to for deliverance from these troubles, is actually the source of them, is dumbfounding!

It's as if you walk around the corner of a building on a busy street and there is Jesus almost bumping into you with a crust of weevily bread in one hand and a cracked mason jar filled with settling pond water in the other, and he looks up at you and says, “Good!...I was just bringing lunch for you.”

God’s ways are not our ways.

Why would a God who loved us enough to have himself nailed to a pole and left out in the sun to die, turn around and feed us adversity and affliction?  Perhaps as punishment for some sin we cling to??  Possibly, but probably not.  Maybe he is been trying to reach you with a message or a lesson you are in need of, and you just never got around to answering his voice mails or his texts.  Maybe you were “afflicted” by losing your job, forcing the sale of your beloved golf clubs and then the burn-through of your “Disneyland Vacation Fund, resulting in a staycation, where the only thing you could afford was to play street hockey with the neighborhood street urchins and invite them to stay and cook wieners over the barbee in the evening…

When Jesus sits down beside you

It's dark, the street urchins have just left, you throw the dirt covered marshmallows and a few pieces of wood on the fire and then pull up a chair and stare into burning coals.  You had always been a believer, maybe not always a strong and faithful believer, but you were always there if a fill-in SS teacher was needed.  So why was Jesus letting Satan destroy my life??

Pondering this you look up from the flames and see Jesus sitting in a lawn chair across the fire from you.

He smiles back at you and says, “I’m sorry if I startled you, I knocked repeatedly at your gate but you never answered so I let myself in, I hope you are not offended.”

You reply, “No offense taken” as you shrug your shoulders leaving your eyes looking into his eyes.

“Jesus, can I ask you a question?”

“Please do, I like it when my followers bring what troubles them to me”

“Jesus, looking at you I realize you have been my teacher much more than I have been your student.  You have remained unseen until now.  But now you make yourself so I clearly see you”. 

You take a deep breath, and ask, “Jesus, why are you letting Satan  ruin my life?  I’ve lost my job, burned through my savings, canceled Disneyland, I’m going to lose the house, and I can’t find a job if my life depended on it.  Why are you letting Satan do this to me??”  “I have prayed and prayed and prayed to you for relief,  none of my neighbors are experiencing this!  I’m falling behind Lord! I must make amends!”” You never answer my prayers, I never see you when I need you, and I never hear your voice, no, not once!”

Not missing a beat Jesus says in a matter-of-fact voice, “It was not Satan that does these things to you, it is me, Jesus, that is responsible.”

 There is not the look of denial, but of affirmation on his face, “Yes, it is I who leaves you in misery”.

Jesus stands up, but you barely notice.

He stands there patiently letting you take it all in.  Then he continues, “Like Job, you suffered with my approval.  Like Paul, you have prayed to me to remove these thorns from your side, and  I replied with silence leaving the thorns as they were.  I show myself to you, you have seen the one who is teaching you.  Lessons taught through affliction and adversity are not soon forgotten and that is good for I have plans for you.  Plans that will take you to places where you will be lost, and bewildered, be rejected and cast out into the darkness.  Yet you must not lose your faith, but cry out to me “Lord show me the way! Show me the way!” and I will reply, pointing the way you are to go, and you will hear a voice from behind you, my voice, saying “this crooked trail is the path I have chosen for you, this is the way I want you to go, and now is the time to walk in it.”

Isaiah 30:20-21: "Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, "This is the way, walk in it."

Poem by bobb “Though”

Though, the the only light be lightening and the rains come as if a 2nd flood,

And the sails fly as shredded flags,  ‘n the riggin’s tangled far above,

Though the waves surround as angry mounts and surge green across the deck,

Though Death sits down beside me, waiting the coming wreck,

As the rudder cuts deep to stay course, the ship's bell calls all for last confess

And though all seems lost, including Hope, yet hard on my oars I press.

For by my heart, I know in truth, the Master walks the deck.

bobb