English Standard Version
So much of my own understandings of God are rooted here in the first few verses of Isaiah 55. There is so much that draws me in, and so much that I struggle with.
It begins with a radical shake-up of our economic understanding. In the world, those with more get ahead. The one who dies with the most toys wins, right? Not in God's economy. In God's economy, there is this wild abundance that is given away freely to all who seek. In God's economy, wine and milk have no price, so there is truly no distinction between rich and poor. The categories into which we put people are dissolved before the face of God, for all come as beggars and discover a storehouse of treasure that is awaiting us. We are invited not only to come and eat, but to delight ourselves. God commands us to delight! For all of those who twist religion into a joyless exercise in deprivation, the prophet Isaiah tells us that God has made us for delight and intends to bring us to a place of joy! The exercise of our faith should be one that points to delight, and we should remember that God longs for us to find our lasting joy in God. Whenever we experience delight in this world, we are reminded that this is what we are made for, and God wants us to enjoy that forever. The delight we find in our earthly lives is evidence that we are made for more, and the sorrow that we experience in life is a reminder that things are not the way they should be. In a world with heartbreak around every corner, it can be challenging to find delight. May we not despair and lose hope.
The prophet asks us why we spend our money on that which is not bread, on labor that does not satisfy. It's a question for the ages. We spend so much money on things that cannot provide the delight that God provides. We spend money seeking pleasure, seeking entertainment, seeking diversion, and in the best cases that money can give us a hint of the delight and joy we have in God, but it cannot purchase that in full, because only God can do that. We'll work ourselves to the bone trying to get more, trying to satisfy our cravings and our need to justify ourselves, but only God can give us true satisfaction, only God can fully justify us. God does this willingly, but we so badly want to do this on our own, that we work and we work and we work. We exhaust ourselves, only to discover that what our hearts needed, what our hearts longed for, is waiting as a free gift.
May we delight in what God offers, and may we find wisdom in not chasing the empty promises of those things that promise, but cannot give, what only God can give.
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