A Message From God - Reading Planنموونە

Start with prayer, asking God to meet you and speak to you. Then watch the film clip below.

Read Isaiah 55, stopping to think and pray about anything that strikes you.

This is a poetic and beautiful call to draw near to God and “seek the LORD while he may be found” (v6). God’s presence is like water to the thirsty, wine and milk to drink (v1), and rich food to eat (v2) – all evocative images of being nourished, satisfied and delighted. Like the disciples discovered as they met with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, there is something wonderful and joyful about coming into God’s presence.

That doesn’t ‘just happen’ though, and this passage is full of calls to action. We’re told to “come” 4 times in just the first verse, and then “listen”, “delight”, “hear”, “seek the LORD” and “call upon him”. How?

Lots of people assume that seeking God is easy and comes naturally to us, or that a vague sense of prayer or spirituality is enough. The problem with that is that God is not like us and cannot just be drafted in to do what we want. At the heart of this passage is God’s declaration that:

my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways…as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

So, how do we seek God and listen to his voice? Isaiah continues by comparing God’s word to rain and snow watering the ground and making it fruitful. We’re told that:

“it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

There is something powerful and amazing about God’s Word, that we can rely on and rejoice in. I love how the poem then finishes with a surreal picture of mountains and hills bursting into song and trees clapping their hands for joy. We can sometimes think that listening to God and following his ways can be restrictive or limiting – but this passage shows us that actually the opposite is true. Listening to God is the way to thrive, coming to him and receiving what money and effort cannot buy (v1), that our soul may live (v3).