I’D RATHER DO IT MYSELF – Isaiah 33

 

“Please, Mother! I’d rather do it myself!”  Years ago, there was an aspirin advertisement with this line in it.  For the young woman in the ad, her mother was giving her a headache with all her suggestions.  The young woman just wanted to be left alone to do her own thing.

Are we sometimes like that with God?  We want to think of ourselves as self-sufficient. 

 

As I’ve listened to the news lately, I’ve been wondering – on what do we base this strong tendency to think we can do it ourselves?  There is little evidence to support it.  Yes, we’ve created all kinds of technical gadgets to do things for us, but are our homes and marriages any better for those gadgets?  Are our communities any more close-knit and supportive? 

 

And how has technology and our stubbornly self-sufficient thinking helped us through the devastation of tsunamis and hurricanes, chronic poverty, spreading diseases, deeply entrenched corruption and chronic hunger?  Maybe we aren’t so self-sufficient.

 

Take a couple of minutes to read the words God gave that Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, chapter 33, verses 5 and 6.  Isaiah often thundered warnings to his people because of their stiff-necked ways.  They wanted to live like they wanted to live without being held accountable.  They wanted to worship in whatever way suited them.  They wanted to do what everybody else was doing.  They thought their own wisdom was sufficient. 

 

Did God think so?  The very first words of this short passage put the emphasis where it belongs – the LORD is exalted.  Not us.  Not our plans.  Not our technology or our systems or our abilities.  The LORD is exalted – lifted up, worthy of praise, in fact, demanding our praise.  Why?  Because He and He alone dwells on high.  He is high and lifted up.  His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts than our thoughts. 

 

Think you know better than God?  It is He who will fill His people with justice and righteousness.  Not our courts or laws.  Know why we wallow in such a moral morass these days?  Because we are trying to build our homes, churches, communities, and social systems on our own self-sufficient ideas.  Only God’s ideas, ways, and will are a SURE foundation for our times.  We will never succeed at community development or achieve food security or make strides in social justice until we acknowledge that we are NOT self-sufficient. 

 

Do our homes and communities need salvation from the mess they are in?  Do we need wisdom and knowledge to begin to facilitate the transformation that will lead people to God-honouring lives?  Only the fear of the LORD (respecting, obeying and searching out His ways and will) is the key to this treasure. 

 

As you seek today, tomorrow, throughout the week that God is giving you to be a facilitator of transformation, may you do this work on your knees acknowledging in every aspect of your life that you are totally dependent upon God – that only He is worthy to be exalted.  Agree with God that you are intended by God's design for community -- with God and with each other.

 

Learning to be helped even as I offer help,                     

                              

Larry

 

 

Larry and Linda McAuley serve the Lord through CRWRC

they reside in Lilongwe, Malawi