Thoughts for the Day

Thus says the Lord,
your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
I am the Lord your God,
who teaches you for your own good,
who leads you in the way you should go.
O that you had paid attention to my commandments!
Then your prosperity would have been like a river,
and your success like the waves of the sea;
your offspring would have been like the sand,
and your descendants like its grains;
their name would never be cut off
or destroyed from before me.

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

We begin a few days of looking at the ways that God teaches us. We learn in different ways - visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and reading (or writing). I mainly learn by doing things (kinesthetic) and by reading, but am not so good at learning visually or through listening. My mother's comment as a child was often, "You have to learn the hard way!" when I fell out of a tree after it had been raining!

Isaiah says that God teaches His people. However, when Jerusalem was destroyed and they were taken into exile to Babylon the people didn't reform their ways. Neither did they listen to God's words spoken through His prophets. And when He intervened to bring them a conqueror-turned-liberator in the shape of Cyrus, who allowed them to return to Jerusalem, their response was minimal. The people did not obey God or repent, and Isaiah sadly describes a picture of what might have been!

Today, God still teaches us today in different ways: We see the problems in our world on tv or social media; we listen to sermons; we may read the word of God in our bibles and on our screens; and we should learn through experience and the mistakes we make in our own life. The question is, are we learning?

Lord Jesus Christ,
You call each of us to action
in a different way,
but all too often we prefer to ignore
the messages You send.
You taught Your disciples
in many different ways,
and You sent the Holy Spirit
to help them understand.
We ask Your help this day
that we may learn Your will for us.
and that we may be stirred to action.
Amen.