Divine Multi-Tasking

"I will turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy. And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city" (Isaiah 1:25, 26).

In Isaiah: God Saves Sinners, Ray Ortlund notes that the Hebrew verbs translated "I will turn" and "I will restore" are actually the same verb. He explains the significance of this fact:

We translate this with different English verbs, "turn" and "restore", because our idiom requires it. But Isaiah is implying that one God, acting in one way, is able to accomplish two things at once. When God turns his hand against us, it isn't a disaster; it's an act of restoration. The discipline of God achieves just what he intends, in purification and in restoration, both at the same time. We can expect the goodness of God to show up in unlikely experiences. When he turns his hand against us to purify us, let's trust him to restore us.

This illness is not a disaster; it is an act of restoration. Every morning, I have to sweep aside all of my cherished hopes and dig into the Word for evidence of this truth. I find that the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and he works all things together for their good. In my better moments, I am encouraged by the fact that the Lord is treating me as a son and I am fortified by the truth that “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him." Still, I can walk away from the Word and moan over my aches and inadequacies with a heart as wobbly as my legs. I am dissatisfied far too easily--a word, a thought, a mis-step and I am undone.

But dissatisfaction is not my deepest problem. The strength of my desire for temporal things (as evidenced by my dissatisfaction when they are removed) points to my lack of love for eternal things--or my lack of faith that such things will truly fulfill all of my desires. In The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis writes, "Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." My dissatisfaction is not an isolated problem; I have a satisfaction problem, too.

Purification (I will turn) sets us free from the weak loves that satisfy and dissatisfy us in order that we may be captured by a new love through restoration (I will restore). In one act, God achieves what this heart can neither ask nor imagine, in its current state. But "the Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands" (Psalm 138:8).