Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Good afternoon, dear grasshoppers.

Sorry. That comes from the reading…as you will see.

I decided on a different approach today. Rather than get my office routine done before going to my mill jog, I chose to go to the mill early and avoid some of the midday heat. Also, I have a real tough time reading the LED screen on my mill’s computer with direct overhead sunlight. Therefore I did a round of milling from about 7am to 10:45am, returned home, ate lunch, showered, snoozed a little, and plan to do another little shift of milling this evening. We’ll see.

Becki gleaned the quote I have at the bottom from someone’s entry on facebook. What a great concise statement of life and faith!

The little boys are here again. I hope to find time today to teach them how to make mud-pies. Would you like to contribute one of your favorite recipes?

Blessings on the rest of your day.

Love, Dad/Ray.

Isaiah 40 is about as spectacular and inspiring for me as Biblical literature can get. It’s difficult to read silently. It helps to rein into control and submission the most rebellious and unmanageable of all human qualities—pride. Perhaps it would be a good exercise of preventive mainainence to read it every day. How can anyone read Isaiah 40, really believe it, and carry on doing life with stupid arrogance? How can anyone sing a related song like “How Great Thou Art” while regarding the singer as big stuff? How can anyone consider the infinite expanse of the universe and not be overwhelmed with humility?

Unbecoming metaphors abound in this passage—unbecoming to human pride, that is. All of us naturally prefer to regard ourselves as more significant than grass. But here we are confronted by the thesis that “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field” (40:6). Isaiah is inspired to not only liken men to grass, but to grasshoppers—“He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, (It’s not flat!) and its people are like grasshoppers” (40:22). Then listen to what God calls Israel—“For I am the LORD your God, who takes hold of your right hand…do not be afraid, O worm Jacob, O little Israel, for I myself will help you” (41:13-14). (Question: How does one take a worm by its right hand?) How haughty does it make you feel to read, “Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales” (40:15)? But it gets still worse—“Before him all the nations (made up of little specks of dust like you and me) are as nothing; they are regarded by him as worthless and less than nothing” (40:17). “Nothing” is pretty small, and “worthless” is pretty insignificant, but “less than nothing”? Wow!—we can’t be reduced to finer “dust” than that! So, tell me again how big and wonderful you are.

If you are willing to flow with these ideas without getting mad, you cannot help but become elated with the glory of the Biblical Gospel. Do you see what I mean? The Sovereign Creator is not finished with His work of creating—making good things out of nothing. He still has the power to make something valuable out of the dust of our nothingness. However, “If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself” (Galatians 6:3), and he will never become the valuable and lasting product that the Creator intends. If it is true that “the word of our God stands forever” (40:8)—that it is like the catalyst of eternal life—then we can become positively eternal too—if we do what David did—“I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11). It’s the same equation presented by Paul—“Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). Are you elated yet?