I will not forget you - 15 December 2008

But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me." 

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!  See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me. 

This is what the Sovereign LORD says: "See, I will beckon to the Gentiles, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their shoulders.  Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground; they will lick the dust at your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who hope in me will not be disappointed."

Isaiah 49:14-28  [NIV]

Most of us go through bad times during our lives, not only in our personal lives but also in our national life. When recession bites, when jobs are lost, money is hard to come by, debt looms, relationships fail and troubles seem to heap one after another: do I feel as the Jewish people did, thinking, The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me"?  Or worse, do I imagine myself too insignificant for God to bother with me?

At such a time as that, Isaiah had the amazing revelation from God that he shares with us in the chapters in his prophecy that we will look at this week.

But first, a comic situation that has all too serious overtones: a cartoon character is tied to a railway line; a huge train is looming at speed.  Our hero whimpers “M-m-mummy...”

It’s an instinctive reaction: even if I don’t say it aloud, I’ve certainly cried it inside at times.  But when in our trauma or our pain we cry out like this, our loving God understands. He comes with these gentle words,

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!

Suddenly I am encouraged, begin to hope.  Nothing is changed in my circumstances, but the picture Isaiah paints “they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their shoulders”, that others might care for me in that way, is so moving I cannot help but draw strength from it, begin to see how I might cope.

And best of all “those who hope in me will not be disappointed”

God says, ‘I will not forget you.’