Moving more slowly through Isaiah than I hoped, but still moving. So that’s a win. I stopped when I read the following verse. It just popped out to me.   

Isaiah 26:10 – Though grace be shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil and regard not the majesty of the Lord. O Lord, your hand is lifted high, but they do not see it.

We are both stubborn and blind. Oblivious. Even in the midst of miracles, we don’t see God. This is as true today as it was in the time of Isaiah. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve overlooked or just been unconscious of what God has done for me, the simple miracles he’s performed to keep me safe, to help me succeed, to protect and shelter me, sometimes even from myself.

Your hand is lifted high, but they do not see it.

I’m not sure whether stubborn is worse than blind or if it’s the other way around. Whether it’s worse to disregard God and refuse to acknowledge the way He works, or to be totally unknowing, to be so far out of tune that you don’t even have the awareness to realize He is present.

Your hand is lifted high, but they do not see it.

Does it make you wonder what you’re missing? It says His hand is lifted HIGH. He’s being as obvious as He can be. I’m always hoping for a sign, something to confirm I’m on the right track. Remember in Bruce Almighty, where Jim Carrey’s character is begging for a sign from God, while honking his horn for the guy in front of him to go faster, a guy who is driving a truck with about a hundred various street signs hanging out of the bed?!? I sometimes think if God tattooed it on my forehead, I’d stand in front of the mirror contemplating why I can’t seem to discern what His will is for me. Oblivious.

It’s as if we’ve grown to believe that God is really invisible, that he only exists up in the air somewhere. Or we’ve drifted so far that we treat Him like our significant other when we’re getting lectured about taking out the garbage for the 100th time (this is purely hypothetical). We just look right through Him in a daze, hypnotized by whatever we can fix our eyes on in the distance. Or we’re just so wound up around our own life that it’s like in high school, when the teacher calls on you to answer a question and you have to wipe the drool from a daydream off your face before you can stumble your way into a semi-coherent and reasonable answer.

Even as we are shown grace, we do evil.

Stubborn. Disregarding what we know is right. Yes, we’ll never be perfect, and sin will come. But it feels in this passage like He’s addressing the unwillingness to do anything about the sin. It’s there to stay, and we’ve just gotten comfortable with it, like an old t-shirt that has holes and is stretched out, but it’s ours and we’ve grown to love the way it feels. It may be ugly, but it’s ours.

So, earlier I posed the question about which was worse, being stubborn or blind. I’m afraid that many times for me, it’s an irrelevant question because I’m both at the same time. I’m holding on to junk that I should let go of, and I’m praying for clarity when God is at work all around me already. If I just stopped for a moment and let my own dust settle, it would be painfully obvious what miracles are occurring, and I bet by opening my eyes to those miracles, I will see the next step as clearly as a truck full of street signs obstructing the road ahead.

Your hand is lifted high, but they do not see it.

My next assignment. Throw away some old t-shirts (both literally and figuratively). Stop looking ahead for God, and look around instead. Oh, and take out the trash (although now that I think about it, yesterday was trash day. Oops).