When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy. (Verses 1-2)
"Kay always lands on her feet," I heard a friend say not long ago. She was looking around our home here at the beach. Wondering at how, after the financial struggles Bill and I had endured, we were still okay. If she only knew. Knew how thankful I am. Knew that for me it is still like a lovely dream I don't awaken from. Knew that without the blessings and intervention of my Father, I'd be nowhere, physically or spiritually. Yes, I landed on my feet because the Lord restored not only our finances, but our lives. The heavy burdens of a couple of years lifted. The weight of the albatross removed from our necks. And there are still shouts of joy. Still laughter and love at our dinner table. So thankful. So beyond thankful.
The Israelites were in Babylon for seventy years. A lesson from God. He wanted them to know what they were missing without Him and their homeland because they took Him for granted, worshipping other gods, living outside of His ways. Babylon. The land of great excesses. Of false gods. Of fornicating before idols. Of gluttony and promiscuity and selfies (probably). To Babylon, God said: "I was angry with my people. I profaned My heritage. I gave them into your hand. You showed them no mercy. On the aged you made your yoke exceedingly heavy...Now, therefore, you lover of pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your hearts, 'I am, and there is no one besides me'...These two things shall come to you in a moment, in one day: the loss of your children and widowhood shall come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the great power of your enchantments." Isaiah 47. (italics, mine) What a nightmare to be captured by our own vanity. To think we are the most important thing in all the world and there isn't anything besides ourselves. What are we incapable of when we become our own small-minded god? Apparently, there are not limits. The Babylonians were the ones who threw Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego into the fire and Daniel into the lions' den. Made an idol of the king to which the entire nation must bow. God let His forgetful, unfaithful people see what a nation without Him looked like. It was a nightmare!
Cyrus came at the end of the seventy years and delivered the Israelites from Babylon and declared that they should go home to their land and rebuild their own temple. Can't you imagine them streaming, now elderly and losing strength, back to the Holy City. Home. Finally. They'd dreamed about this day. Told their children about the plenty in the land--about the beauty of the hills. Jerusalem--where God dwelt with them. Laughing and shouting to be freed from the decadence and ungodliness of Babylon. Dancing with happy feet in their homeland again without restraint. God restoring what was lost. Hoping now they'd understand what it is to be in a foreign land where self is the only god. I can feel it in my heart right now. The warmth of nearing God. Finally, finally, free to love Him instead of their own puny selves.
I don't underestimate trials to take me back to center. To get me where God needs me to be. I certainly don't always hear Him loud and clear. I've absolutely experienced making myself the center of my own universe. Walked almost off the edge of the earth in an effort to quell an aching heart. Only to discover my heart pants only for my God. Nothing else satisfies. We can stuff our lives with pleasures, buy the store out, travel to exhaustion, amass unspeakable wealth, rise to unprecedented power or recreate our physical bodies at the hands of some cosmetic surgeon, but we won't find peace or purpose that way. We weren't created for fame and glory. It will kill us. Make us legends in our own eyes. But when the Lord says "Enough," it can all be gone in a second. Sometimes it takes God letting us have our own way for a bit to see we turned down a wrong way street with no outlet. To understand we can't call on our wealth, fame, beauty or ingenuity to get us out of our personal Babylon. And when we hit the wall at the end of the darkened alley, fall to our wobbly knees in the realization we are stuck and lost in a nightmare with no good ending, and cry out "Help me, Jesus!", He's standing there, all white in the murkiness, not so much disgusted by our filthiness as disappointed in our disobedience. Wishing...wishing we'd listen this time. And then He takes us back home to His heart. Cleans us up and restores what was lost. How in the world could we ever go wandering again?
So they returned to Jerusalem like we return to Jesus. And we can sing with them what Judah sang upon their return in Isaiah 26: We have a strong city. He sets up salvation and bulwarks. Open the gates, that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in. You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You. I am thankful that my Father is a builder of my walls and a rampart around my heart. The Restorer of my soul (Psalm 23). The One Who catches me when I'm tumbling upside down and makes me land on my feet!
"Kay always lands on her feet," I heard a friend say not long ago. She was looking around our home here at the beach. Wondering at how, after the financial struggles Bill and I had endured, we were still okay. If she only knew. Knew how thankful I am. Knew that for me it is still like a lovely dream I don't awaken from. Knew that without the blessings and intervention of my Father, I'd be nowhere, physically or spiritually. Yes, I landed on my feet because the Lord restored not only our finances, but our lives. The heavy burdens of a couple of years lifted. The weight of the albatross removed from our necks. And there are still shouts of joy. Still laughter and love at our dinner table. So thankful. So beyond thankful.
The Israelites were in Babylon for seventy years. A lesson from God. He wanted them to know what they were missing without Him and their homeland because they took Him for granted, worshipping other gods, living outside of His ways. Babylon. The land of great excesses. Of false gods. Of fornicating before idols. Of gluttony and promiscuity and selfies (probably). To Babylon, God said: "I was angry with my people. I profaned My heritage. I gave them into your hand. You showed them no mercy. On the aged you made your yoke exceedingly heavy...Now, therefore, you lover of pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your hearts, 'I am, and there is no one besides me'...These two things shall come to you in a moment, in one day: the loss of your children and widowhood shall come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the great power of your enchantments." Isaiah 47. (italics, mine) What a nightmare to be captured by our own vanity. To think we are the most important thing in all the world and there isn't anything besides ourselves. What are we incapable of when we become our own small-minded god? Apparently, there are not limits. The Babylonians were the ones who threw Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego into the fire and Daniel into the lions' den. Made an idol of the king to which the entire nation must bow. God let His forgetful, unfaithful people see what a nation without Him looked like. It was a nightmare!
Cyrus came at the end of the seventy years and delivered the Israelites from Babylon and declared that they should go home to their land and rebuild their own temple. Can't you imagine them streaming, now elderly and losing strength, back to the Holy City. Home. Finally. They'd dreamed about this day. Told their children about the plenty in the land--about the beauty of the hills. Jerusalem--where God dwelt with them. Laughing and shouting to be freed from the decadence and ungodliness of Babylon. Dancing with happy feet in their homeland again without restraint. God restoring what was lost. Hoping now they'd understand what it is to be in a foreign land where self is the only god. I can feel it in my heart right now. The warmth of nearing God. Finally, finally, free to love Him instead of their own puny selves.
I don't underestimate trials to take me back to center. To get me where God needs me to be. I certainly don't always hear Him loud and clear. I've absolutely experienced making myself the center of my own universe. Walked almost off the edge of the earth in an effort to quell an aching heart. Only to discover my heart pants only for my God. Nothing else satisfies. We can stuff our lives with pleasures, buy the store out, travel to exhaustion, amass unspeakable wealth, rise to unprecedented power or recreate our physical bodies at the hands of some cosmetic surgeon, but we won't find peace or purpose that way. We weren't created for fame and glory. It will kill us. Make us legends in our own eyes. But when the Lord says "Enough," it can all be gone in a second. Sometimes it takes God letting us have our own way for a bit to see we turned down a wrong way street with no outlet. To understand we can't call on our wealth, fame, beauty or ingenuity to get us out of our personal Babylon. And when we hit the wall at the end of the darkened alley, fall to our wobbly knees in the realization we are stuck and lost in a nightmare with no good ending, and cry out "Help me, Jesus!", He's standing there, all white in the murkiness, not so much disgusted by our filthiness as disappointed in our disobedience. Wishing...wishing we'd listen this time. And then He takes us back home to His heart. Cleans us up and restores what was lost. How in the world could we ever go wandering again?
So they returned to Jerusalem like we return to Jesus. And we can sing with them what Judah sang upon their return in Isaiah 26: We have a strong city. He sets up salvation and bulwarks. Open the gates, that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in. You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You. I am thankful that my Father is a builder of my walls and a rampart around my heart. The Restorer of my soul (Psalm 23). The One Who catches me when I'm tumbling upside down and makes me land on my feet!
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