Monday, October 2, 2006 · one response · comments closed

Since last Thursday, I’ve been trying to write about Isaiah 63:1, where God declares Himself “mighty to save.” My goal is to blog before 6 a.m. each day, mostly because I have no interruptions that early in morning. I occasionally manage to blog later in the day, but not often. And so it has been for the last several days.

I was up and ready to write, but about 5:15, Zack came in panicked about a project he had due that day. So Thursday was gone, and Friday morning too, as I helped him proofread an assignment (we’re working on procrastination!). Friday night Zack had two friends over to celebrate his fourteenth birthday (I think they went to sleep about 3 a.m.), and Saturday morning Isaac played soccer at 8. Yesterday, we had a mother-daughter tea party in honor of Anna’s sixth birthday (tea parties are harder to pull off than you might think). And these are just the big things that happened! I’ve been running around like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off for the last several days.

Throughout all this frenetic activity, I’ve been hanging on to “mighty to save.” Last Thursday, I read Charles Spurgeon’s devotional on this verse. Spurgeon’s vivid language brings out the richness of these three words mighty to save:

Christ’s might doth not lie in making a believer and then leaving him to shift for himself; but he who begins the good work carries it on; he who imparts the first germ of life in the dead soul, prolongs the divine existence, and strengthens it until it bursts asunder every bond of sin, and the soul leaps from earth, perfected in glory.

I love this idea that God does not “leave me to shift for myself.” Spurgeon’s point is that God’s salvation is a complete work; that what God starts, He also finishes. He goes on to say that whether our concern is for someone else who needs salvation or for ourselves in a specific situation, our Father is mighty to save. The Spirit brought these words to mind Thursday afternoon as I was feeling hopeless about a conflict with a family member. I was reminded that there is always hope because God is always mighty to save.

And these words also guided me in thinking about how to help Zack with his project. As he came to me, I had a choice: let him reap the consequences of his poor choices and procrastination, or step in and help. I thought about my heavenly Father and how He never leaves me to “shift for myself.” And I considered that in this case, the stress that Zack felt — his sense of impending doom — was consequence enough; he had misjudged what was required and realized too late that he couldn’t quite pull it off by himself. And I thought of my own tendency to to procrastinate and knew that I could hardly ignore his cry for help when I’m still learning the lesson of wise time use myself.

Praise God that He is “mighty to save”! And I love the fact that God doesn’t relay this powerful truth second-hand, having Isaiah say it for Him. No, God, our loving Father, powerful and majestic God, tells us Himself, “It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.”

OK — allow me be the proud father for a moment. You can see Zack’s fine project here. Here’s Isaac on the soccer field (he’s the one staring at the camera!):

And here’s Anna with her friends; Anna’s in the pink hat: