Read Numbers 10, Isaiah 35, and Galatians 4.
This devotional is about Isaiah 35.
A lot of things are broken in this world, aren’t they? You may have body parts that just don’t work right any more because they’ve been weakened by age or damaged through injury and disease. The place where you work might be struggling to make money despite making good products and having good workers. We all have aspects of our lives that just aren’t working as well as we might expect. They might not be working at all.
But the world itself is broken, too. It has vast acres of desert, where nothing grows but cacti, so no one can live there. It has oceans of water, but they are salty, so they cannot provide water for humans or for plants. At each pole, the earth is covered with ice and uninhabitable for man. As great and beautiful as much of the earth is, it is hostile to human life in many places, too.
That will change when Jesus returns and finishes his redemption. When his kingdom comes, the useless parts of creation will become productive. Our passage today, Isaiah 35, begins with these words: “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, 2 it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.” Likewise, verses 6c-7 say, “Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert. 7 The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.”
Broken bodies will be restored, too, for verses 5-6 say, “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. 6 Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.”
But, as great as all this physical restoration will be, our moral renewal will be greater. Verse 8 says, “And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way.” Verse 9d-10 says, “But only the redeemed will walk there,
10 and those the Lord has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”
If you are struggling to produce enough to provide for your family, if your body is limited by immobility and pain, or if you are discouraged by the sinfulness of this world, including your own sin struggles, please take hope in these words. Human advances in agriculture, medicine, and education are helpful to our lives, but only Christ can redeem us and all things. Trust in his plan and his promise of redemption and long for the day when, as verse 2 puts it, we “will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.”