Happy Are Those Who Take Refuge In Him

I turned to Isaiah 29 this morning. The Son has been given the power to break the nations like a potter's vessel.  I could hear it clanking on the tile floor, smattering into a hundred shards across the floor.  Some pieces big enough to pick up, others hidden only where a broom could find them, crushed into a powder. The people described in Isaiah 29 are similar to those mentioned in Psalm 2.  They think they are smarter than God and can come up with plans that separate them from God's designs for the nations. 

Listen to Isaiah: 

 "The wisdom of their wise shall perish, and the discernment of the discerning shall be hidden.  Ha! You who hide a plan too deep for the Lord, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, 'Who sees us?  Who knows us?'  You turn things upside down!  Shall the potter be regarded as the clay?  Should the thing made say of its maker, 'He did not make me'; or the thing formed say of the one who formed it  'He has no understanding?"

This is, of course, speaking very literally of an inanimate object having a voice.  So, it is only a picture of creator and created.  But the idea that we are in HIS hands, created for HIS purposes, and designed with dignity is apparent here.  That He is more powerful than the created person is clear.  Unlike the pot, I CAN jump out of His hands and pretend I know what I am doing without Him.  I think I can go my own way as if I were not created with purpose and do what I want with my life.  But what if I were created to hold fine wine and chose instead to be in some back alley filled with garbage.  Then I shake my fist at God and curse Him for my circumstances.  I can choose.  But He does see and know what I am about.  And He is at best unhappy that I think I am out of His earshot. 

I woke up with the thought this morning that it is curious how people think that our lives are random.  Three ladies were killed yesterday in a bad accident in Orange County.  Snuffed out on their way home from church. Just like that. Where did they go?  To think they went to dust in a random act of fate is strange to me.  Because the universe is not random.  It is not a place of chaos, but order.  It has design and function.  Did we all really just crop up from primodial sludge to exist then die without purpose.  I cannot even fathom that.  Order does not come from chaos...As Isaiah says,  that "turns thing upside down."  That is what science says, until they speak of creation.  Maybe it's because we don't want the kind of god who knows and sees.  That is very uncomfortable.  Maybe it's because we don't understand the God of all.  He can sound pretty terrifying...in fact, His power IS terrifying.  But He is the potter.  I am the clay.  I am safe in the hands of the One who forms me because He has a purpose for the creation He is making of me.  Happy are those who take refuge in Him.