The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent’s food.
This sounds like a lovely place to dwell, doesn’t it? Seems like that place in time that the majority of the human race might refer to as world peace. To me, it sounds like the Kingdom of Heaven. It comes from the book of Isaiah, chapter 65 vs. 25. If you read the passage before that particular verse, it really falls into place. This particular verse reminds me that with God there is hope. With God, all things are possible. So, that verse that describes that perfect peace–the Kingdom–I need to stash away in my heart, where God already dwells, for remembrance.
I spend quite a little time in the Word. I use Bible studies and commentaries and dictionaries and cross-references to help me better understand whatever it is I am supposed to be getting out of a particular passage on a particular day. That’s pretty deliberate action, on my part, to try to connect the dots. Lately, I’ve been using a less deliberate approach. I read from a book that takes me through specific passages, but doesn’t force me to read them in any particular order. It’s a devotional that does happen to have 365 entries which might suggest that I read once a day, but it doesn’t have a date that binds me to that reading on anyparticular day. (Pretty freeing actually, I find that it is much easier for me to find time daily to go through when I don’t feel like I have to…somehow, but I digress.) So, I’ve been starting out my Bible time with this book and then finishing with a list of reading that will also take me through the Bible in 365 days and gives me Old Testament passages to read, followed by New Testament passages. These two resources have nothing to do with each other. Yet somehow, one always makes the other more clear to me. That’s an example of why we call the Bible a living text, folks! But, on the particular day I read about the wolf and the lamb, I also read this:
When they had pasture, they became satisfied, they were satisfied and their hearts became proud. Therefore, they forgot Me.
That comes from Hosea 13:6. You know, that’s probably God trying to tell us something, but unfortunately it’s the people that forgot God that I identify with in that passage. I’m going to examine my own spiritual life for a minute, because I can totally see this happening far too often than I would like to admit.
I feel like I have a pretty good prayer life, but unfortunately it seems I find myself using prayer more often when I feel like I need something. For so long, I hope and I pray for a change that will satisfy some need. I do this with the right attitude of course. I pray about God’s will for my life and ask Him to identify whether this is justified and to lead my heart towards the right path. I do this especially during times of turmoil and unrest. Sometimes I get abrupt answers and I give thanks or I say, yeah, I know you’re right, I’ll lay off for a while. But sometimes my answers happen very gradual and are very subtle. The next thing I know, things are falling into place. And, after a very long time, perhaps so long that I have forgotten about my many outcries for help, I find myself living the life I had always hoped for and dwelling among the answers for which I prayed. But, I have forgotten where I came from; more than that, I have forgotten where my blessing came from. I might even have failed to recognize them as blessings at this point. So, then I naturally forget to be thankful. To say it very bluntly, that’s because I am human and I often forget I need God for just about everything. (Think about it. You can’t take one single breath without Him.)
That’s when the pride sneaks in. It was such a gradual change in to satisfaction, that somewhere in my mind it became a “me thing” instead of a “God thing”. I forgot about all that conversation I had with God, about the emptiness I had been feeling in that area of my life. I forgot about all the prayer and hard work and time I put in with God and I start to justify it as normal. I somehow think that I am deserved of such GRACE. Of course I would never recognize it as such. I just think I am going along living MY OWN life. So then, slowly, I forget about the thanksgiving that hasn’t happened yet. And since we have a jealous God…well, that doesn’t go over very well, I would imagine. I like to think that it kind of hurts His feelings–if I can liken that to what a human might experience.
Verse 9 of this same chapter says
I will destroy you, Israel; you have no help but Me.
He gives, and He gives abundantly whether we see it or not, every single moment of every single day (think, again, about the need for breath). But, He can also take away. Listen, I’m not saying that our God is hostile and wants to hurt us. He wants, in fact, the very opposite. For the most part, we humans take care of the “taking away” part ourselves. We find ourselves in the above situation (notice how I have changed from “I” statements to “we” statements. I’m going out on a limb here and suggesting that you might be experiencing something like this on a rare occasion.) We forget that it took God to lead us to that place of satisfaction that we now are recognizing as normal and deserved. And, in a way, we turn our backs on Him. That place–without Him–is where we find the destruction that occurs. Self destruction, really. That’s what happens when we take our lives into our own hands and fail to recognize that our lives are not our own and that our lives are not even possible without God. (If I can’t even breathe without God, how can I possibly take a step, make a decision, walk through a life event?)
Take a look back at that first passage. This is when we need to step back from ourselves a little and remember where the wolves and lambs feed together. The Kingdom of God, yes? That’s that place I have stashed in my heart. That place of hope. The only way that place exists is with God in our hearts. It’s there when we “need” him, of course! But also, when we find satisfaction.
t0nya
