there are None so Blind…

I saw a mom and dad crying over their son pictured kneeling by the side of the man who was just before cutting his head from his shoulders, they were crying…so was I. Children being used as human shields, but then that is nothing new is it? Remember the stories that came out of Viet Nam? Not only were they used as human shields they were handed guns and equipped with bombs and sent into the midst of our troops to wreck havoc. Israel is fighting to keep their homeland and others are fighting to take it away from them. War, war, rumors of war… does that sound like something you may have read in the Bible? Luke 21:25-28 “It will seem like all hell has broken loose—sun, moon, stars, earth, sea, in an uproar and everyone all over the world in a panic, the wind knocked out of them by the threat of doom, the powers-that-be quaking.  “And then—then!—they’ll see the Son of Man welcomed in grand style—a glorious welcome! When all this starts to happen, up on your feet. Stand tall with your heads high. Help is on the way!”

That is a very small thumbnail of what is going on in the world, I didn’t mention the sex-slave trade which is rampant, drugs on our streets and the drug-lords who are making their money on the misery of people who need their merchandise…I want to get a little closer to home.

There is a scripture in Isaiah that in context is speaking to His people concerning things that are going to happen and we see all of those things coming to pass as I speak…yes we are all affected by it, the whole globe, the community of the earth, we are all in trouble…but I am seeing this scripture as true up close and personal. First read the scripture, Isaiah 42:17-20 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?”

If I were going to tell you in a short statement what I get from that verse it would be, “There are none so blind as he who will not see and none so deaf as he who will not hear.”

I am living with a person who personifies that. It is a lesson in life if you think about it… all evening my dear mother has wanted to “go home”, never mind we have lived in this house for thirty-eight years. She is worried because she has no money for…it would be up to your interpretation of what she is trying to verbalize there is no way to understand, but in her mind whatever it is that “they” are bringing that she needs money in order to buy, she has no money for it and she is incredibly upset. I tell her over and over again that she has money but there is no need for money as she sits there in her little white leather recliner with her bony little feet and legs covered with a soft blanket. I fed her a small bowl of “porridge” but she was crying because she didn’t have money to pay for it, at least that is what I understood her to be saying. As I explained to her many times that we are in our own home, her bed is right at the top of the stairs, she doesn’t have to pay for the food she eats and no she doesn’t need her shoes she still does not understand so I have finally just told her that I don’t want to drive in the dark so we are going to have to spend the night with these people for tonight. Now she is worried that they were not expecting us and are not prepared.

As I was explaining these things multiple times I thought about how we are actually the same way with God. He has given us so many promises and yet we doubt that He will answer us. He supplied water for the Children of Israel in the middle of the desert and sent meat when they tired of the daily bread in the form of Manna that He had provided every day. For forty years their shoes did not wear out and they didn’t have to have new clothes! Provision? Yes I would say so. He protected them when the army of Pharaoh was chasing them into the sea and when the army kept coming God simply opened the sea for them to walk through on dry land and then closed it again when the army got in the very middle of the water, right over their heads, horses, chariots and all! Yet we shake in our boots over things every day that He could easily take care of for us.

We are promised everything that we need in Psalm 23 and I am putting it here for you to read without having to look it up, if you don’t already know it from memory. As you read it don’t be like those who are willingly blind and folk who are deaf by choice, look at God’s promise and hear Him as He says, “I will never leave you, I will never forsake you, I will be with you until the end of time”.  “God, my shepherd! 
 I don’t need a thing. 
You have bedded me down in lush meadows, 
you find me quiet pools to drink from. 
True to your word, 
 you let me catch my breath
 and send me in the right direction. Even when the way goes through
 Death Valley, 
I’m not afraid
 when you walk at my side. 
Your trusty shepherd’s crook
 makes me feel secure. You serve me a six-course dinner
 right in front of my enemies. 
You revive my drooping head; 
 my cup brims with blessing. Your beauty and love chase after me
 every day of my life. 
I’m back home in the house of God
 for the rest of my life.”

I don’t want Him to have to tell me more than once and He already did that on the Cross…