He Alone

07.12.14

Isaiah 12.2 2 Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.” NIV

There seems to be a perspective that is very rare: the perspective that the Lord is very real and the Lord is mine; and He alone is my salvation. I think I can say this because I struggle with that concept, that perspective; and I often go somewhere else in my mind before I go to: The Lord, the Lord Himself, is my Strength and my Defense; He [Alone] has become my salvation.

In the days of Isaiah, there was a lack of this perspective toward God. In Isaiah’s day there was a smorgasbord of options for God, god, or someone else’s deity. Yes, Israel had the “Lord” but He was not their Lord in the sense that He alone had become their salvation. He was just Another out there. Sound familiar?

To get to the place where one admits (and sings praise about): The Lord, the Lord Himself, is my strength and my defense; He has become my salvation, one has to have experienced Him in a completely different way than just another option or choice on life’s big menu-board. God will never be God to us until we are desperate for Him alone and can say emphatically, He alone has become my salvation; He alone is my Help and my Guide and without Him, I’m undone!

We only get that perspective through suffering. We only get that perspective when through the incompleteness and confusion of human life where we reach that point where we are through with our own way. At that point, maybe, we find the song, the chord, the chorus ringing in our hearts and ears: The Lord Himself is my Strength and my Defense; He has become, above and beyond every other stunt, trick, or scheme I’ve tried – my Salvation. I don’t want anything or anyone else.

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me, all the days, all the days of my life. Goodness and Mercy, said one author, are God’s sheepdogs. Goodness and Mercy are the gifts of God’s grace when one is sitting in a wheel chair, paralyzed from the neck down. Goodness and Mercy wag their tails at us and lick our faces when our bodies are invaded with ALS. Goodness and Mercy urge us to go and play fetch when the job ended abruptly and unexpectedly.

Goodness and Mercy guide us to that place of praise, that when all seems to have gone wrong and not according to our plan; they bark excitedly when the praise breaks forth on our lips: “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation! “ Their tails wag like they’re going to fall off.

Oh, and the chorus?

“And I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever;

And I'll feast at the table spread for me.”

Father, it is You alone or it is nothing. I pray for myself and my friends that the place of suffering would be that joyous place where the sheepdogs bark excitedly and our hearts sing gloriously that You Alone are our strength and defense; and that You Alone are our salvation! Amen!