He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. (Isaiah 40:11)
How shall I bless your people, O Lord? How shall I minister?
Among the ruins
Somehow I feel we need the warmth of the un-encompassable love of The Lord, painted in vivid words across time, through His servants the prophets, and eternally in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Too many of us live among the ruins, desolate, cauterised, the nerve-endings of our emotions severed, never to dream again, never to feel again, never to open our hearts again.
Others live in tears that flow day and night; whether in remorse or in regret, or in rejection, hearts broken beyond mending, our sighs sinking empty into pillows each night.
Some of us live in loneliness among the desolate ruins. People stopped wanting us too long ago to remember what it felt like to have friends. People do what needs to be done for us to maintain our existence, but no more than that. We exist; we do not live.
A lot of us find it impossible to believe we are loved by God, because we are only too painfully aware of how sinful we are.
If we aren't any of these I just described, we're on our way into one of them.
If you are one of the fat, sleek ones who feel no lack of just about anything, I guess I am not writing this to you and you can stop reading it. There are some of us like that; indeed, many.
It is a cold age; an age of fierce individualism which treads over the weaker ones. The also-rans are not just left behind, but they are mowed down into the dust. The shrill strength of the individualist beats down the average Joe. Small beginnings, little dreams, tender steps.....are sitting ducks for the achievers. Come to think of it, it's always been this way with mankind - from the ages of kings and empires down to the reign of money in this age.
And among us, in this age, come the words of the Lord to Isaiah.
**************************************
It isn't over until The Lord says so
Tender, faltering steps. Fragile, slender courage. Barely learning to stand. Still feeling the pain of the past. Wisps of hope finer than the filaments of a spider's web. All but just about to give up.
Are you there today? Thinking it is over? If you are, I want you to meet a God for Whom it is never over. It is never too late. It is never too far gone that it cannot be redeemed.
I want you to know what our destiny is, we who trust in God. Believe me, we need to know this, because it is precisely what our oppressor does not want us to ever find out.
***************************************
Hearts of stone
Isaiah 40 is a unique chapter in all of the Old Testament. It is one bubbling wellspring and a beacon of hope for all who read it and take it to heart. If you ever want to start reading Isaiah, you will be blessed if you begin at chapter 40.
Here God comforts His people.
Living as we do in this apathetic, indifferent, insensitive, chilly age, we have forgotten what it means to be comforted. Our wounds have scarred over and the scabs are set like granite. Our hearts are of stone (Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26). What does this mean?
It's not good news, I'm afraid. Tears are a sign of wellness, much as they are hard to bear; pain that is felt is a sign of life, much as it is hard to endure. But a heart that does not feel any emotion is a heart of stone; it is a heart cauterised, where the nerve endings to both physical feelings and emotions have been severed. In such a heart, wounds are not acknowledged, or bound up. A hard, bitter, pragmatic exterior scar hardens into a granite scab. We are "self-made", individualist, hardened mercenaries. The only way we know to live is for ourselves; we feel neither our own pain nor the pain of others.
Does this sound extreme? It actually is not. It is the way most of us in this age normally live, only no one has called our bluff so far. Many indeed are the rationalisations - "God helps those who helps themselves", "we need to be tough because no one will do it for us", and the list goes on.
Alas! How cold and hard is a wounded, crushed heart that does not know it needs to be comforted!
Isaiah 40 is for hearts of flesh. Hearts that feel the wounds and come to God to be comforted and healed. Its everlasting words of hope and healing are for the tender-hearted. For the weaker ones.
**************************************
Tender God
The picture of a shepherd and his flock is a kind of logo, almost, all over the Bible. Now it won't make much sense until we understand the relationship between an Israelite shepherd and his flock.
We must learn to compare ourselves to sheep, first of all. God uses the most perfect analogy when He speaks to us likening us to sheep. Sheep are interesting creatures, so like human beings in their behaviour and temperament that the comparison is uncomfortably close and scary.
To start with, sheep are easily led. In fact, without leading, they go astray and run riot. If you want an orderly flock, you need a shepherd.
Curiously, sheep are also highly individualistic. The stronger ones tend to keep butting the weaker ones out of their way. They keep trying to get the best for themselves.
Even closer to human territory, sheep instinctively know where the good things are, and importantly, they trust a shepherd to lead them to the good things. In fact, sheep know when the shepherd calls them. They know the shepherd's voice. In one sense, they know authority and respect it; they can tell the voice of the hireling from the voice of the shepherd, like Jesus said in John 10:1-6.
Sheep are also highly dependent on the shepherd. They need the shepherd to do part of their thinking, and will trust without reservation. These are the good side of being easily led.
Sheep cannot resist danger and temptation too much. We do know the famous picture of a shepherd reaching out for his lost sheep that has wandered off the top of the cliff.
The relationship between a shepherd and his flock is far more intimate than we understand in this age, inured as we are to anti-establishment and individualistic leanings.
The shepherd knows his sheep individually. He is aware of the minutest wound; he knows who the strays are and how to woo them back; he knows the ones who struggle; the fat, sleek and overfed ones; the rejected ones. He knows where to lead the sheep, where the grass is sweet, where danger is minimal and where water is abundant. He knows how to protect his flock from danger.
Does this sound merely "symbolic"? I was in fact speaking of a real shepherd and his flock; not really of the symbolic picture of an Israelite shepherd and his flock as it is used innumerable times in the Bible. The analogy is from the actual to the symbolic; not the other way round. The Biblical passages about shepherds and sheep must be understood from the REAL point of view first before they can be understood as symbolic of the relationship between the Lord, our Shepherd, and us His flock.
Isaiah 40:11 is a grand, intricate piece of art which tempts us to believe how real it is and how close at hand it is. It is an end-time prophecy and must be understood as such. How can an end-time prophecy comfort us? We may not even live to see the end times. So must we wait till after we're dead and gone to know our God the way Isaiah 40:11 paints Him?
Yes and no. In one sense, for the present, it is immensely comforting to know that Someone is indeed keeping track of our lack of nourishment, our child-like dependence and our difficulties. And it is eternally comforting to know that this Someone Who knows us so minutely is indeed our Lord! Are you living among the ruins today and scraping your wounds with a shattered piece of glass like Job did? God knows it. Have you given up? God knows it, and He does not give up. Wherever we are today, let's know that God's love reaches us there.
In eternity, Isaiah 40:11 will still be true, in fact, more true than it is today, at least in perception if not in reality. How often we lose out on the promised future restoration! It is not one of Christianity's pipe dreams; it is not pie in the sky; and not merely a "ticket to heaven".
Isaiah 40:11 is the REALITY of eternity. Because we have hearts of stone, we may not perceive that our deepest human longings are eternal both in scope and fulfillment. Our deepest HUMANITY is eternal. We will not, indeed CANNOT, be comforted except our God Himself comfort us. And Isaiah 40:11 is the promise of our God that He understands and has made provision not just now but in eternity, in REALITY, for our deep longings. No temporal human agency or comfort will be a balm to us like Isaiah 40:11.
*************************************
We know the God of Isaiah. We know the God Who spoke Isaiah 40:11.
Isaiah 40:11 must be read from the King James Bible, which rightly speaks it in FUTURE TENSE, because it is primarily a FUTURE promise, just like the rest of Isaiah 40 and the remainder of the book of Isaiah.
Today, we must take this grand verse to heart. If indeed the Holy Spirit in our hearts is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance, we must rejoice, for what is Isaiah 40:11 but a glimpse of our inheritance in Christ Jesus? The Lord will indeed feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arm and carry them close to his heart; and those with young he will lead gently. Are you a special sheep with special needs? Are you a little lamb, perhaps the littlest? Or do you feel like just one of the flock, an ordinary one? Whoever you are, He will feed you; envelop you in His arm and carry you close to His heart, and will gently lead you.
When Isaiah 40:11 is fulfilled, we will be there to see it; if not, prophecy has no meaning. What is it that you long for the Lord to do today? Wait a little; be patient. Since you wanted it, He has taken it to heart; and when He fulfills you, you will know He has fulfilled it; and you will know HE and no other has fulfilled it. Whether it is in this life or in eternity, YOU will know that to hope in the Lord is not to hope in vain; He will do that which He has purposed for you, and your heart will be comforted never to grieve again.
We tend to take restoration a little glibly, underestimating how deeply we need it and how impoverished we are without it. All effects of having hearts of stone. We must think about how fulfilling The Lord's fulfillment will be. He has taken note of our suffering, beloved; He has seen our hearts. Now let us look to Him for His comforting, whenever it comes.
I hope I have been able to convey how deeply Isaiah 40:11 has blessed me; but I suspect strongly that my deepest heart, where this prophecy touched me, has not been revealed. Never mind; I only meant to provide a glimpse of how deep, how wide, how long, how high, and yet how tender, sensitive and gentle God's love is, painted across the ages for us.
We know the same God Isaiah did, beloved. And He has not changed towards us in 2013!
May God's grace be lavished on each of us abundantly.
***************************************
Resources
Other important pictures in the Bible of shepherds and sheep that you can study to understand how God speaks to us using this theme:
- I Samuel 17, specifically v. 33-37
- Psalm 23
- Ezekiel 34
- Zechariah 10:1-5; 11:4-17
- John 10
- Numerous others
