Verse of the Week
February 9th, 2006 | by Ed |Here’s a verse you’ve probably never seen…
“Kings shall be your nursing-fathers…” (Isa. 49:23, KJV).
I’ve always been intrigued by that statement, and not just because of the biological incongruity. The prophet is speaking to people in captivity, forced into servitude by invading kings. To this disheartened group of people, kings have become grim symbols of tyranny, injustice and oppression.
In the midst of despair, Isaiah sounds a message of hope. Parched grounds will break forth with rivers and streams. The wilderness will echo with the sounds of joy and laughter. And the kings who tyrannized you will become your nursing-fathers! The very kings who enslaved and oppressed you would nourish and nurture you. Tyranny would be transformed into ministry.
Isn’t that God’s way: to transform swords into plowshares, the implements of destruction into instruments of cultivation? To take the tyrant of suffering and cause it to nourish our spiritual lives? To take what was designed to destroy us and use it to enrich and enlarge our lives?
Do you have some “kings” who have invaded your life? God can transform theiir tyranny into ministry. They may be the very tools that God uses to cultivate the fruit of patience, to implant a sensitivity to the hurts and needs of others, to give you that gentle touch which allows you to access to others’ lives.
One Response to “Verse of the Week”
By Victor E on Mar 5, 2006 | Reply
The evil people intend for us can be turned,by God, to our good.
When someone does something bad to me and I don’t dwell of it but think instead of some goodness God has given me, of course undeserved, that evil brings me closer to God, and foils the evil.
If someone says something negative about me or my mind replays some demeaning tape, I can choose to stand on God’s word and who I am in Christ. When I do that, and believe it’s so, I act like a son of God instead of a defeated person. Most of us can recall times someone we loved, someone we respected, etc, say “You can do anything right!” Now in Jesus I can say, even when I don’t feel like it but believe it because the Word says it, “Hey, I’m sufficient…in Christ”, amoung many, many other things.
So yes, we can actually be spiritually nutured if we learn to respond to our “tyrants” with scripture.