You shall not go out with haste,…for
the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard. —Isaiah
52:12
Security from Yesterday. “…God requires
an account of what is past” (Ecclesiastes 3:15). At the end of the year we turn
with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to
arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God’s grace
tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is
the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past
into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past
to protect us from a very shallow security in the present.
Security for Tomorrow. “…the Lord will go
before you….” This is a gracious revelation— that God will send His forces out
where we have failed to do so. He will keep watch so that we will not be
tripped up again by the same failures, as would undoubtedly happen if He were
not our “rear guard.” And God’s hand reaches back to the past, settling all the
claims against our conscience.
Security for Today. “You shall not go out
with haste….” As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste
of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive
thoughtlessness. But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the
God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible
things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never
return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive
thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet
embrace of Christ.
Leave the broken, irreversible past in His
hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.
No comments:
Post a Comment