Isaiah 15 | Wayfarer

Ar in Moab is ruined,
destroyed in a night!
Kir in Moab is ruined,
destroyed in a night!
Isaiah 15:1 (NIV)

It’s hard to believe that those now graduating from high school have no recollection of life before 9/11. How quickly life, as we knew it, changed that day. I can still remember walking by the cafeteria inside my client’s office building that morning and catching a crowd of people huddled beneath a suspended television. Out of my peripheral vision I saw it, and it caused me to stop and wonder what was going on. I slipped quietly to the back of the crowd and watched the first tower burning. While I was standing there watching the second tower was struck. I packed up my things and went home. I knew that all of our meetings would be cancelled that day.

It had really been 50 years since the last time an event of that magnitude shook the U.S. From the accounts I have read, and from the testimony of my family members I know that Pearl Harbor had a similar effect. Everything changed in a moment.

It is a luxury to live in relative peace and safety.

I read the words of Isaiah’s prophecy against the ancient cities in Moab. I try to imagine what it was like in that day. How hard life must have been. How dangerous. A wandering raiding party could change everything for you and your family in a moment. I have to believe that is how it is for many people today living in certain villages of Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Ukraine, and other war zones.

It is a luxury to live in relative peace and safety.

This morning I’m waking up to a beautiful morning. I will go to my client’s office. I will conduct my training sessions and return to my hotel. My concern this morning is not fear of life, of safety, of security or provision for me and my loved ones. My concern is finding my way in a city strange to me, finding favor with the new team with whom I’m working, where I’m going to eat tonight among the myriad of choices, and my beloved Cubs finding their offense tonight against a formidable Cleveland pitching staff.

It is a luxury to live in relative peace and safety.

Thank you God, for blessings I so often take for granted. Shower your peace, safety, and provision on those who know they afford no such luxury this day.

Featured image courtesy of Jason E Powell via Flickr

They pour into the streets wearing black, go up on the roofs, take to the town square, Everyone in tears, everyone in grief. Isaiah 15:3 (MSG)

I sat on the dock at the lake with both my parents and my teenage children. It was one of those quiet conversations that don't usually happen in the busy rat-race of everyday life, but in the peaceful tranquility of the lake, they just sort of emerge. I asked my parents about some of the things they'd seen and experienced in their lifetime. They talked about the nation-wide celebration when World War II was over when people poured out of their houses to have an impromptu party in the streets. They talked of the day President Kennedy was assassinated and the shock and horror the nation experienced.

I thought of my own journey. I remembered where I was when President Reagan was shot, when the Challenger exploded, then Columbia. I remembered the day when the twin towers fell.

The depth of human tragedy in Isaiah's prophetic messages are easily lost when we don't make connection to our own experience. For the nations he addresses, the threat of impending seiges waged by invading armies was very real. His message was, and is, sobering. While I don't believe there is much to be gained in preoccupation with tomorrow's potential doomsday, I believe there is wisdom in understanding that the blessing I enjoy today is not guaranteed tomorrow.

Today, I'm taking time to be grateful for all with which I am blessed, and to realize that it could all be tragically gone in the twinkling of an eye. I don't want to take God's blessing and provision for granted.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr and quiplash