Pleasant Stone Devotional Meditation: January 19

"I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them: because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not" ~ Isaiah 66:4

For many months after I became a Christian, I shuddered at passages like this in the Old Testament. They made God the Father seem so unlike Christ! Intellectually, I believed Christ and God were One. But my heart rebelled at passages which spoke of God's bringing fears upon us and choosing our delusions because we did evil before His eyes. Everything in me wanted the Father to turn out to be what the Gospel of John said He was. I could trust everything I knew about Christ. And I could never, in the wildest reaches of even my writer's imagination, conceive of Jesus Christ bringing fears down upon someone. Nothing inside the Heart that broke on Calvary pointed to that. What was wrong? Wasn't this passage in Isaiah God's Word too? Wasn't it God (One with Christ) merely clarifying Himself for me. The same God who created my mind in the way He knew would function best, was merely proving Himself to be a God of His Word. One whose moral laws were consistent with His laws of creation. If I chose to do evil before His eyes, certain fears and delusions would be the inevitable consequences of my choosing. God's part here is that He simply chose to create the mind in a certain way. If I choose to disobey His plan for me, specific fears and specific delusions will result. This no longer causes me to rebel. It causes me to rejoice. He is a dependable God and I can count on fears and delusions when I disobey.

"I am he; I am the first, I also am the last. ... O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise."