Blotted Out

Isaiah tells the story of a man who cuts down a tree. He burns half of it to warm himself and roast his meat, and he says, "Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire." Out of the rest of the wood he carves an idol, and then "he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god." Isaiah tells it without raising his voice. He does not need to.

Those are the people verse 22 is spoken to. They were people who had bowed down to the other half of their firewood.

Drifting away from God almost never begins with a decision. It comes along with a move, or a diagnosis, or an argument nobody has mentioned since. Not praying becomes comfortable faster than anyone expects, and then a year has gone by, and then three. There was never one big moment of turning away that you could point to, and that is part of what makes it so hard to talk about. It was a slow drift, and a drift has no date you can circle on the calendar.

Now hear what God says to people like that: "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins." To blot out means to wipe away, the way writing was rubbed off a scroll. Notice that God says it is already done before He gives the invitation. Notice the order too, because it runs backwards from what we expect. He says, "return unto me," and then He gives the reason: "for I have redeemed thee." He does not ask you to come back so that He can forgive you. He asks you to come back because He already has.

That promise does not ask you to explain the gap first. The cloud has already been wiped away, and the sky above you is clear. The only thing left for you in this verse is to come home to Him, and the door is already open.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 36 is Create in Me (Psalm 51:10).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna