Unmovable Kindness

A woman is walking through a house she has to sell. She has crossed this room a hundred times in the dark, but now she tests the floor with her foot before she puts her weight down. She has never done that before, and she cannot stop. When something you stood on for years is suddenly gone, you start to wonder what else might give way.

Isaiah 54 is spoken to a people who had lost their country. What makes the chapter unusual is that God does not pretend about how that loss felt from their side. He sums it up Himself: "For a small moment have I forsaken thee." And again: "In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment." He does not soften it into a misunderstanding.

Then He does something startling. He swears an oath, and He picks His example on purpose: "For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee." He puts His kindness in the same group as the promise the whole world still stands on today.

Then, in verse 10, He measures His kindness against the ground itself: "For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed." Mountains and hills are the things we expect never to move. God says His kindness will outlast them.

Lord, the ground moved under us this year, and we will not pretend it did not, because You did not pretend either. It felt like being left. You have told us what it was and how long it lasted, and You have sworn an oath about what comes next. We would rather have Your oath than an explanation. Hold us while we learn to put our weight down again on floors we used to trust. And where we can be steady for someone else this week, even in something small, make us steady. Amen.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 63 is The Night Ride (Nehemiah 2:18).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna