Shout for joy, you heavens;
rejoice, you earth;
Shout for joy, you heavens;
rejoice, you earth;
burst into song, you mountains!
For the LORD comforts his people
and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me,
the Lord has forgotten me.”

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are ever before me.
Your children hasten back,
and those who laid you waste depart from you.
Lift up your eyes and look around.

This is what the Sovereign LORD says:

“See, I will beckon to the nations,
I will lift up my banner to the peoples;
they will bring your sons in their arms
and carry your daughters on their hips.
Kings will be your foster fathers,
and their queens your nursing mothers.
They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground;
they will lick the dust at your feet.
Then you will know that I am the LORD;
those who hope in me will not be disappointed.”

–Isaiah 49.13-18a, 22-23 (NIV)

I am persuaded that one of the reasons people fall into despair is that they become convinced they are on their own in this world and in their heart of hearts realize how woefully inadequate and unprepared they are for the task of living in the midst of a broken world. For whatever reasons, they have become convinced that either there isn’t a God or if there is, he too is incapable of helping them deal with all that can go wrong in life.

Apparently this was also a problem for the people of ancient Judah as today’s passage attests. Here God speaks through his prophet to tell his people to rejoice because he is both willing and able to bring real hope and comfort to them, that he really is an adequate God.

Despite this promise, however, God’s people have forgotten that he is the Sovereign and omnipotent God, more than able to take care of their every need, both as individuals and collectively as God’s chosen people. And if we are careful to read today’s passage in its broader context, we certainly can relate to them, can’t we, because we too are every bit as broken and hurting as they were.

I can just hear them now. “God, you’ve punished us and threatened us with impending exile. We’re supposed to be your chosen people. How can you possibly even think about doing the unthinkable to us?” Of course, in saying this they have not stopped to see things from God’s perspective. They haven’t stopped to consider that their pursuit of idols and immoral living is actually leading them to death because it will effectively keep them alienated from the Source and Author of all life. It’s almost as if they are telling God, “If you love us, you’ll let us do whatever we want!”

Sound familiar?

But God will have none of that nonsense, not from his chosen people of ancient Judah and not from us living today. Let’s take a moment and look at this from God’s perspective, at least as best we can. “I’ve warned you repeatedly through my prophets to change your ways because your idolatry and immoral and unjust living are killing you,” God seems to be saying to his people in the broader context in which today’s passage falls, “and I want you to live because I created you to have a relationship with me. I didn’t create you for death, but for life, and you can only find and have life in me. And because you have been so persistently and willfully stubborn and rebellious, you leave me no choice but to punish you because I love you. I want you to wake up and see the desperate situation you are putting yourself in so that you will stop pursuing those things that will inevitably lead to your death and permanent separation from me. Please listen to me! Even if you don’t fully understand my concerns, you must trust me because I am God your Creator and I see the Big Picture in ways you simply cannot because you are finite and mortal.”

For those of us who have been parents, we can readily understand what God is telling us here, can’t we? For example, we think of those times when we have expressed our concerns about the people our kids hang around because we know that bad company must inevitably corrupt the good. We don’t want to see our kids fall in with the bad because we love them and don’t want to see them engage in potentially destructive behaviors. Sometimes, this leads us to punish them, not primarily because our kids have made us mad but because we love them and are trying to protect them from themselves as well as others. As parents we have the knowledge and perspective that our kids simply do not have yet and so we often move to protect them, even when our kids simply do not understand. This often leads them to dig in their heels and resist us when we do. In biblical terms this is called being stubborn, wayward, and rebellious, among others.

Go back and read the “hard passages” of Scripture through this lens and it will give you an entirely new perspective on God’s interactions with his wayward people. If you start reading Scripture with the assumption that God loves you beyond your wildest dreams (faith seeking understanding) instead of seeing God as some mean, cosmic ogre bent on preventing you from ever having any fun (interpreting the Bible with suspicion), God will bless your reading of his word with breathtaking clarity and wonderfully comforting new insights about him.

Coming back to today’s passage, then, we see God reassuring his fearful people. “Don’t be afraid. Open your eyes. See why I have had to punish you and take me at my word that I love you beyond your wildest imaginations. Trust me. I know what is best for you. Yes, I have had to punish you but it was for your own good. However, that’s not the kind of relationship with you I want or my heart desires. I love you with the tenderness of a mother nursing her baby. How can I let you go? How can I forget you? But you have got to trust me and turn from the things you are doing that must cause you to die. I’m not talking about your mortal bodies dying. I am talking about being separated from me forever. That’s real death.”

When by God’s grace we finally understand that God really does love us despite who we are (we needn’t look any farther than the cross to see the truth of this), we are ready to let God comfort us with real comfort and hope. We realize that we are not left to our own devices in the game of life. We finally get that we don’t have to live life by ourselves. Our eyes are opened up to the manifold blessings that God gives us in this life, blessings that don’t make us immune to the hurts and heartaches of life but rather are given to us to help us deal with them with grace and power.

We feel God’s love for us through the Presence of God’s Holy Spirit living in us and in the life of Jesus we see the supreme exemplar of how God intends us to live our mortal days because we see God himself living as a human, struggling to live under the same conditions he has set for the rest of us. And when we muse on and ponder all this, we finally get that God really is Sovereign and really can provide help and comfort to us if we are willing to let him. The biblical term for us doing that is called humility and we are promised good things when we are able to behave consistently with humble hearts.

Are you living in despair? Have you lost hope? As Augustine reminds us, despair can kill the soul and infect our lives. It can lead us to believe we really are unlovable or beyond God’s forgiveness. Today’s passage, however, is the antidote to despair because it reminds us that nothing is farther from the truth. No one is beyond God’s love. No one is beyond God’s forgiveness. That is why reading Scripture regularly is so important because it is, in part, the testimony of God’s love story for his fallen creatures.

If you are living in despair, take heart and hope. Think deeply on the message of today’s passage. Ask God to give you grace to really come to know his great love for you and let him answer you as he will. Look at the resources you have available to you right now, both spiritual and human, and don’t discount any of them.

Most importantly, decide to trust God and have faith that he has the power to heal you in his own way and time. Count on it. Expect it. Read passages in Scripture that remind you of his great love for you made manifest in Jesus and of his Sovereign power to help you deal with your afflictions. And don’t forget to find others who are willing to allow God to use them to minister to you (and you to them). Remember that you were created for relationships, not to live in isolation.

As John reminds us in his Gospel, Jesus came to earth so that we might have life and have it abundantly. Take Jesus up on his gracious offer. He wouldn’t offer it if he couldn’t deliver and he wouldn’t offer it to you if he didn’t love you. You’ve got the witness of Scripture and of countless others to testify that Jesus is good to his word and that his offer extends to everybody, even the most unlovable amongst us. Is that not enough to just blow your mind?