1/9/23 Devotional from Ed
January 9, 2023
Text: Isaiah 40: 21-23
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to live in;
who brings princes to naught,
and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
Devotional: The rhetorical questions that start this reading help emphasize the big conclusion: God is God and we are not.
It is fitting this Lectionary text appeared on Monday morning. For many of us, Monday mornings are organized chaos - breakfast is ready, but the children aren't out of bed, who is picking up which child at the end of the day, did you remember to make the dog's vet appointment - chaos that makes us feel like the whole world revolves around us and our decisions.
It doesn't, which is humbling.
And then Isaiah calls us, himself included, "grasshoppers!" Truthfully, I think of The Karate Kid when someone calls me a "grasshopper," which was commonly said to me by an old boss: "Patience, young grasshopper." It was until I reread this text this morning that I remembered we, all of us, were called grasshoppers by Isaiah long before the prophet Miyagi.
However, do you find some comfort in these words? Does an ironic sense of peace come over you when you think, "The world will still continue whether or not my "to do" list, a list that likely contains a few things that truly can wait, is completed?"
I hope so. It helped me this morning, but it took four questions in the beginning to get the points through my stubbornness. Sometimes we need a reminder of our place.
May we take comfort in being a grasshopper this week.
Prayer: Holy God, on this Monday morning in early January, fill us with your Spirit. We ask for a sense of peace, a peace that reminds us that we are not in charge of whether or not the world turns and the sun rises. And in this peace may we also be reminded that it is you who loves all grasshoppers. Amen.
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