Isaiah 50:10-11 – Be patient, we are in God’s refining process

Leading to Isaiah 50:10 we saw how despondent the people of Zion were. They felt abandoned and forgotten by the Lord. They could not see how their population could increase since Israel as a nation had been rendered barren and incapable of bearing children. Feeling the tough hand of tyrannical Babylon they questioned God’s ability to deliver them. In their despondency, they even felt like a divorced spouse. Meanwhile, God kept assuring them of His presence with them, and of His ability to deliver them. He even assured them of His faithful despite their disobedience. God’s reason for sending them into exile was for the purpose of straightening their life. God never meant to destroy them but to wake them up and be faithful.  

In the first 9 verses of Isaiah 50, we saw the faithfulness of God’s Messianic Servant. Speaking prophetically of Jesus Christ, we were told how He prepared Himself to be able to speak a word from God to the weary. We saw how He had to suffer and how He withstood them all, enduring the shame as God vindicated and affirmed Him. Like Him we too must prepare ourselves for the work God is calling us to do. Even when we face hardship, we trust God to see us through. He will never let us down.   

 

In these last two verses of Isaiah 50, the Servant exhorts the discouraged to trust the Lord even though they were in a season of bleakness where they could see no light. Those who trust in Him would experience His deliverance. However, there would be those that would not trust and would resort to their own ways to extricate themselves from the situation. They kindled their own fire to light the way only to be scorched and burned by their own fire. We can see this as a discouragement from seeking to try to free oneself from the circumstances through one’s own devise. It might end up in a case of jumping from the  frying pan into the fire and ending in a grave of one’s own making.  

 

We must learn to trust God even when we appear to be in a season of prolonged darkness and God seems far away. We should remain trusting and hold on till His light shines through. Do not ever try to seek to deal with one’s circumstance by one’s own seeming cleverness. We may be jumping from the frying pan into the fire and hurting ourselves even more. There is a season for everything in God’s timetable for us. There will be “a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance” Ecclesiastes 3:4. When He is through with us, we shall come forth tried as pure gold. Hold on, God is constantly perfecting us to bring about the best version of us in Christ.