they will know that I am the LORD

glory for glory's sake--because He is worthy.

11 PM contemplations on Isaiah 49 don’t happen often, so I figured I’d write them down.

A theme I’ve been meditating on lately has been that of suffering being sacred, necessary, and yet still painful, despite it all.

Pain isn’t about learning lessons so we don’t make the same dumb mistake in the future.

It’s not a herald of our past sins.

And it’s not purposeless.

Never that.

CS Lewis said that pain is a megaphone to a deaf world.¹

Adding to that, pain is a way forward—the only way forward.

In fact, it’s toward something, Someone.

Pain can be the only place in which we must endure to grow toward the light. Somtimes that light feels impossibly far away, but that’s where we must fight the hardest, no matter the despair, the woe, the feeling of lack, we must struggle on, because glory awaits us in Eternity, even if not in this life.

Because aren’t we really only pilgrims in this wild wasteland? Isn’t our home somewhere else, somewhere everlasting, where rewards are promised to those who are faithful to cling lightly to the material and seek after salvation of the soul?

Before bed, reading Isaiah 49, something struck me. From verse 1-14, there are words from Jesus Himself speaking through the Prophet Isaiah, declaring his mission and therefore who He is.

Depiction of Isaiah eating the burning coal fed to him by an angel of God, painted by North Italian School.

But then there’s a break and 14-26 switches to the peoples’ perspective. Their dwindling hope that any rescue could come to save them from uprooted lives, the wrecking of their entire culture and history.

But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
And my Lord has forgotten me.”
“Can a woman forget her nursing child,
And not have compassion on the son of her womb?
Surely they may forget,
Yet I will not forget you.
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
Your walls are continually before Me.
vs. 14-16

Something about suffering, takes just a little niggle of a doubt to make us question.

Is God there?

Does he see me?

Does he understand what I’m going through?

Does God want me to be happy?

Does God really love me?

Something else can happen to, though.

We can look up.

“Behold, I will lift My hand in an oath to the nations,
And set up My standard for the peoples;
They shall bring your sons in their arms,
And your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders;
Kings shall be your foster fathers,
And their queens your nursing mothers;
They shall bow down to you with their faces to the earth,
And lick up the dust of your feet.
Then you will know that I am the Lord,
For they shall not be ashamed who wait for Me.”
verse 23

and

“Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away,
And the prey of the terrible be delivered;
For I will contend with him who contends with you,
And I will save your children.
I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh,
And they shall be drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine.
All flesh shall know
That I, the Lord, am your Savior,
And your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”
verse 26

I know, strong language.

But the last two lines of each of those verses, that’s what’s important here, what’s key here.

It points to Him. His character, His vision, His overarching rescue plan, as Sally Lloyd-Jones² constantly hints at.

Our suffering is a megaphone to a deaf world, yes.

It also proclaims His glory.

The God who created a process called incarnation, became one of us, ‘bowed’ to his creation, in a sense, is the God who we bow the knee to and worship, worship through our suffering, because He is worthy.

It does not diminish the pain, hurt, heartache that won’t let up.

But there is purpose in it. Many. Most I don’t know or can’t name.

One I know for certain: that He must transform us into Himself, because that is what love does. It transforms. And He is love incarnate.

Loving us is part of his glory.

Perhaps part of the purpose of suffering is that His name may be glorified, magnified, set up on high above all other names.

Names like

addiction,

money,

prestige,

power,

unworthiness,

guilt,

fear,

isolation,

death.

He brings us low to raise us mightily, all for the sake of his name.

Because the weight of glory that his name carries, that is what we intrinsically need, deep down to the marrow in our bones.

We don’t serve a God who is maniacally obssessed with himself. It’s just that all of creation cannot help but center itself around him, because he is the center of it all. Things, people, could not be complete without the heart, which is the LORD.

And so, maybe Isaiah was on to something.

Perhaps just a little bit of our hearts gone cold from wounds inflicted could be warmed in the truth that we are growing into the likeness of our Father, who desires sons and daughters, not just children.³

1. Here’s an extended version of surrounding context around this quote.

2. Jones refers back to the ‘Great Rescue Plan’ multiple times in her work, The Jesus Storybook Bible, which you can purchase here on Amazon.

3. George MacDonald says this somewhere, but I can’t find the exact quote. I heard John Eldredge quote him on this episode of WildAtHeart podcast.