Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Does God ever get tired? Two Bible texts appear on the surface to give totally contradictory answers: “The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary” (Isa. 40:28). The answer appears to be No. But listen again: He says to His people, “You have burdened Me with your sins, you have wearied Me with your iniquities” (43:24); and “You have wearied the Lord with your words” (Mal. 2:17). Now the answer is Yes.
It’s two kinds of “weariness”: physically, the Creator is not tired; He holds up the universe in His hands. But in heart, God is wearied with human sin, and all the misery that it has produced: “Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear [reverence] Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:13, 14). Speaking of those whose human hearts are sensitive to suffering, Isaiah says: “He became their Savior. In all their affliction He was afflicted ... In His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bore them and carried them all the days of old” (63:8, 9). God is indeed a personal Heavenly Father to all whose hearts cry “Abba, Father!” (Rom. 8:15).
A child who suffers does not feel the agony as keenly as the sympathizing parent. When Isaiah says, “He redeemed them,” it’s the entire human race whom He redeemed, as our second Adam, the new Head of the race, suffering with us and dying our second death (Heb. 2:9). God feels the pain, the tears, the despair of millions.
Can you and I share a bit of that suffering? Imagine yourself on Death Row when you know for sure in your heart that you are the innocent party. Imagine yourself guilty, you did make a tragic mistake, and now you are locked up for life. God shares all that pain and agony. Add to that, all who are hopelessly ill, the captives held in the grip of addictions, the broken homes and disappointed marriages, the tears of parents weeping for their children; yes, imagine yourself with your helpless little ones clinging to the branches of a tree in a flood in Africa.
Jesus wants to come and put an end to all the suffering in this world. We speak of His coming as our “blessed hope.” Have we ever thought about how it is His “blessed hope”? The clock of the universe has ticked away for thousands of years of sin history; it’s time now for God’s people to begin to view matters in the same light in which He views them. Then we will be able to pray intelligently, “Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.”
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 4, 2000.
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