“You have multiplied the nation, you have magnified its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people - women, children, men - exalt when dividing plunder.
Today Isaiah reflects on God’s steadfast presence in the midst of difficulty. In verse 3 Isaiah writes that, because of God’s presence, people's joy will be like the joy at harvest time or after a war, when they plunder the dead. That’s an odd kind of joy to reference.
Joy: like at the birth of a child? Yes!
Joy: like at a wedding? Yes!
Joy: like after people are done slaughtering each other? Wait, what?!
When we’re attentive to passages like this, we enter the discomfort of disconnect. There is a cultural chasm between us and the writers of scripture that we often gloss over.
But this disconnect invites us to ask deeper questions. What does harvest and plundering the dead have in common? Survival. What were people surviving? The hardships of ordinary life in the Ancient Near East.
For these people God’s goodness sustained them against the specter of famine and the terror of war alike. There was nothing bleak enough to snuff out God’s light for God’s people.
Most of us are not facing famine or war, yet, many of us feel like we are just surviving.
It may be a season, a particular challenge, an internal war, but where in your own experience do you long for God’s presence to transform your experience?
How might you look for moments of transformation today?
--Taeler Morgan
Reframe is built around the idea that our habits can change, and in turn change us.
One of the hardest yet most effective ways to shape a new habit is to share it with someone.