Isaiah 54:7,8: "For a brief moment I abandoned you but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord your Redeemer.

Greetings to you all in the name of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. I can’t believe that it's October already. I feel like I just attended the New Year service and was all ready to face this year with His strength. To me personally, till this date I was tossed, rejected, confused, frustrated and what not, about certain things that happened in the past 10 months apart from all the joyful moments I had. In everything that happened first thing I would do is question God "why have you let this happen to me?” then I would calm down and see what went wrong. Obviously, it was something related to me and my actions. I might have rushed into it or wasn’t patient enough in a situation or even assumed stuff that weren’t true. But trust me in all this He has never let me go. Even if I was wrong, He let me learn a lesson and then brought me out of the situation. The song “Pick me up from the miry clay and put me on the rock to stay” is one of my songs to describe my situation.

This verse beautifully portrays the character of our Saviour. Firstly, "honesty/ truthfulness" in the way He agrees that He abandoned us. When somebody says to us why did you abandon me? We would reciprocate and tell no I didn’t abandon you (deep in our heart we know we did) as it’s difficult to accept it.

Secondly, assurance that He loves us, shows us His care and love for us. Even after firmly saying that He abandoned us, nothing stops Him from assuring us how much He loves us and is willing to bring us back. Sometimes when my little one is naughty I have got angry with him for what he did but immediately I calm down and make him understand why I got angry and tell him no matter what I still love him (I am sure he is used to it by now)

Thirdly, anger. I have heard from many people say God is angry at me that’s why my life is like this. I haven’t progressed because God’s anger is upon me. Yes God can be angry but it is just for a moment. All He does when He is angry is to hide His face from us. When I am angry I burst out, get irritated with anybody and everybody etc. One thing I learnt from this verse is when one is angry its best to go away alone and stay calm. It’s the best way to avoid further arguments and helps us to control our temper.

Last but not the least, His kindness. I love the way He says everlasting kindness. It makes me feel how special I am to have someone show an everlasting kindness and compassion over us.

On the first day of this month I would like to remind you that no matter what your faults are, how bad they are, He is waiting to bring you back with deep compassion and show everlasting kindness to you. All it takes is one step of realization and confess to Him. He is ready with His arms wide open. This verse reminds me of the parable of the prodigal son where the son runs away from the father’s home with his share of money. He goes with his friends does anything and everything. Once he runs out of money, he realizes what he did was a big mistake. All his friends who were with him when the money was there left him the moment he ran out of money. He did meager jobs to keep him surviving. One day he decided to go back home. He expected the worst but when his father saw him, he ordered the servants to bring a robe and asked them to prepare a feast. His father ran to him and embraced him with love and welcomed him home. You and I are like the prodigal son running away from our Father but He is waiting with arms open wide to embrace us and tell us everything is fine. Like the prodigal son we need to step up and return back home because that’s where we belong. I also urge you to pray and help your friends who are in the same situation to realize and turn back to where they belong.

The raw reality about God’s grace :

 There’s nothing we can do to make Him love us more;

There is nothing we will do to make Him love us less.

Sis Aaltiya David

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