Isaiah 30: 18
Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; how blessed are all those who long for Him.
One of the jobs of any minister is to bring you the Word of God. I also share with you what God is telling me, but in delivering passages of scripture, there is an impartation of the Word to you. What I write will, hopefully, bring enlightenment to the scripture and inspire you. The most important part of this, or any devotional, though, is what comes to you through your meditation on the Word.
Today’s verse seems very powerful to me. I wonder, though, what you hear as you read and reread it. Why does the Lord long to be gracious to you? He is waiting to show you the depth of His compassion. Why does He long to show you His compassion and upon what, or whom, is He waiting.
Isaiah seems to suggest that our longing for God is a key to unlocking these blessings and perhaps even others. Is God awaiting us? What does He need from you and from me in order to rain down His love, compassion and blessings upon us.
While you are pondering today, let me give you one more question to consider. If God longs to be gracious to us, what is stopping Him? If He awaits on high to show His compassion, for what is He waiting? If God can do anything, at anytime, then what is restricting Him from showering us with His graciousness and compassion? This passage makes it clear that God is limited in this realm. How can that be, except that He limited Himself? For those who stand on God’s absolute sovereignty this verse should give pause.
I hope you will take a walk with Jesus today and talk with him about all these musings.