The Promise of Mother Love

This coming week I will have the great joy of spending time alone with my daughter on the island of Kauai--so, I thought I'd concentrate my posts on the promises and joys of family.

In describing Zion's future in Isaiah 66, God speaks of the difficulties, delusions, and time it will take to bring about her deliverance. He concludes with this word of hope:

"Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river,

and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream.

Then you shall feed; 

on her sides shall you be carried, 

and be dandled on her knees.

As one whom his mother comforts,

so I will comfort you;

and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem."

~ Isaiah 66:12-13

God, Who created the heavens and the earth by the power of His word . . . God, Who will judge the nations and cast Satan and his powerful minions into the Lake of Fire . . . this same God looks with mother-love on Israel and those who love her (v.10). He will comfort them like a mother comforts her child, carrying them, dandling them on His knees.

Can you even fathom this? Sitting on God's knees? If not, why not?

After all, God sent His beloved Son Jesus Christ to prove His love for the world. And Jesus reaffirmed that love over and over again by His life and testimony. Didn't He delight in little children? Didn't He pick them up and place them on His knee?

Whatever the future holds--and reading about future events in the Bible can be a fearsome thing--we know this much, our God loves children. And Heaven will be populated with those of childlike faith.

"Assuredly, I say to you, 

whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child

will be no means enter it."

~ Luke 18:17

We can rest in the fact that God has promised to comfort His own with the love of a mother.

A String of Selah Pearls - Psalm 32:6-7

Positioned gracefully across the Book of Psalms is a string of seventy-one pearls, lovely beads of wisdom followed by the admonition SELAH which means, “Pause, think on these things, meditate.”

Psalm 32:6-7 “Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found; surely when the mighty waters rise, they will not reach him. You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah.”

Meditation:

This is a pearl of warning. It’s as if God is telling us to climb aboard while we can. Judgment is coming, like the flood of Noah’s day. God had offered a means of escape in an ark of his own design, but most paid no mind. They drowned. Only Noah and his believing family found refuge and deliverance in that ark.

God promised never to flood the earth like that again. But he is coming to judge the living and the dead. As before, he has promised to be a hiding place for the godly, those who believe him.

So where are we? Where do we stand? You? Me? Is there any good reason not to believe what God has said?

God, my Father, I believe! Surround me with songs of deliverance. Make me like your servant Noah, unafraid and unashamed to proclaim the truth of your return.

SELAH

Look up: Genesis 6; 8:21-22; Deuteronomy 4:29; Psalm 46:1-3; Romans 2:5-10; Revelation 6:17; 11:18; 16:1; 19:15; 20:11-15; Romans 1:16; 2 Peter 3:9-10, Romans 10:14-15

A String of Selah Pearls (continued)

Positioned gracefully across the Book of Psalms is a string of seventy-one pearls, lovely beads of wisdom followed by the admonition SELAH which means, “Pause, think on these things, meditate.”

Psalm 3:8 “From the LORD comes deliverance. May your blessing be on your people. Selah.”

Meditation:

Deliverance. Blessing. It’s all from you, Father God,

and yet . . . .

too many of your people don’t acknowledge your blessings.

We whine and tell you how to do your job.

Why is it so hard for us to honor you, God?

Apples must have fallen on Adam’s and Eve’s heads because,

ever since the Garden of Eden episode,

we humans have been confused, really out-to-lunch.

Like the serpent, we want control.

We want to determine the rules of engagement,

decide who gets blessed and who gets cursed

and what those blessings and cursings will be.

Yet, you know our frame. You remember that we are dust

and, mercifully, refrain from blowing us off the face of the earth.

Instead, you extend a simple invitation,

so simple that any dust bunny

should be able to understand . . .

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,

that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

SELAH

Look up: Deuteronomy 30:19; Psalm 103:14