People Dulled to God's Presence

God's People Worship
The Prophet and Praise
Holy, Holy, Holy

Isaiah 6:9-13

The Message

^9-10 He said, “Go and tell this people:

“‘Listen hard, but you aren’t going to get it;
    look hard, but you won’t catch on.’
Make these people blockheads,
    with fingers in their ears and blindfolds on their eyes,
So they won’t see a thing,
    won’t hear a word,
So they won’t have a clue about what’s going on
    and, yes, so they won’t turn around and be made whole.”

^11-13 Astonished, I said,
    “And Master, how long is this to go on?”
He said, “Until the cities are emptied out,
    not a soul left in the cities—
Houses empty of people,
    countryside empty of people.
Until I, God, get rid of everyone, sending them off,
    the land totally empty.
And even if some should survive, say a tenth,
    the devastation will start up again.
The country will look like pine and oak forest
    with every tree cut down—
Every tree a stump, a huge field of stumps.
    But there’s a holy seed in those stumps.”

For Reflection

Carl Sandburg writes in The Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind,

"It has happened before.
Strong men put up a city and got a nation together,
And paid singers to sing and women to warble:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,nothing like us ever was.
And while the singers sang
and the strong men listened
and paid the singers well
and felt good about it all,
there were rats and lizards who listened…
and the only listeners left now
… are
… the rats
… and the lizards."

Sandburg, however, saw no seeds of hope! 

Pray

that you will find hope where there is despair. Pray for the hope found in God's promise.  Pray that you will not become discouraged when your expectations for justice is not met.  Pray for the patience to wait on God's time.