my backwards.

isaiah 42:18-25

Pay attention! Are you deaf? Open your eyes! Are you blind? You’re my servant, and you’re not looking! You’re my messenger, and you’re not listening! The very people I depended upon, servants of God, blind as a bat—willfully blind! You’ve seen a lot, but looked at nothing. You’ve heard everything, but listened to nothing. God intended, out of the goodness of his heart, to be lavish in his revelation. But this is a people battered and cowed, shut up in attics and closets, victims licking their wounds, feeling ignored, abandoned. But is anyone out there listening? Is anyone paying attention to what’s coming? Who do you think turned Jacob over to the thugs, let loose the robbers on Israel? Wasn’t it God himself, this God against whom we’ve sinned— not doing what he commanded, not listening to what he said? Isn’t it God’s anger that’s behind all this, God’s punishing power? Their whole world collapsed but they still didn’t get it; their life is in ruins but they don’t take it to heart.

this feels backwards. i know that it’s true. i feel that it is true.  everything about it.  growing up in the church, i would say that much of what is done to christendom in america is blamed on the heathens (druggies, rapists, homosexuals, democrats, etc.).  jacob was YOUR boy.  YOU chose him.  isreal is YOURS, and YOU let the robbers in.  YOU wanted them to get it.  YOU were willing to let their whole world collapse around them to set them straight and they still had more selfishness in them than obedience.

wherever i am ignorant, correct me.  open my eyes and my ears.  tune me to what is coming so i can pay attention.  ruin me so i can take heart.