In Return and Rest

A couple weeks ago our oldest, Micah, was attempting to build a complex, angular tower out of magnatiles. He was deeply focused, and as a result, deeply frustrated when it collapsed. He tried to rebuild the creation a second time, only to have the top pieces fall off. Seven year olds certainly aren’t known for self-restraint, and Micah was no exception. In his rage at this second failure he kicked down the remainder of the tower and stomped away. 

Throughout this process I was sitting a couple feet away with a clear view and a simple solution to his problem. I offered multiple times to help him solve the problem he was facing, but he refused. When I noticed his anger rising I had suggested taking a brief break to reset. That only increased his anger. 

I was reminded of this scene when I read the passage from Isaiah 30 cited below. How often do we operate like a seven year old when it comes to dealing with the failures and struggles in our lives? When something is difficult, overwhelming, or challenging, we assume that the solution is to try harder. When someone invites us to step back or ask for help we get angry. We stomp away. We curse ourselves for our ineptitude. We go to our secret sin for relief. 

That’s a problem, isn’t it? A problem far more insidious than anger at an unsteady magnatile tower. The issues we’re dealing with as adults are much bigger, more complex, with more potential for lasting damage than a stack of plastic magnet blocks.  

Our sin-laced situation

They’re situations like getting into financial debt, feeling in over your head while parenting, being trapped by suffocating depression, or going years without a clear sense of purpose in life despite desperate searching.  

In almost every instance, the background story that’s put us where we are involves sin – both our sin and those of others. It’s parallel to the context of Isaiah 30. In Isaiah 29 the prophet is describing Jerusalem being under siege as a result of the judgment of God upon Israel’s waywardness. They’re surrounded by enemies with no apparent way to escape. Failure and death are imminent. 

They need a solution. An escape. So they make one for themselves.  

Our selfish solution

“Ah, stubborn children,” declares the Lord,

“who carry out a plan, but not mine,

and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit,

    that they may add sin to sin;

² who set out to go down to Egypt,

    without asking for my direction,

to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh

    and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!

³ Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame,

   and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation.

30:1-3

Like Israel, our tendency is to either leverage our own strength and craftiness or recruit the strength of others to solve our problems. 

For the Israelites that looked like allying themselves with Egypt to guarantee military help and fleeing Jerusalem in hopes of escaping the pain and loss that was coming.

Odds are you’re not buying a flight to Egypt to escape your problems, and if you did it probably wouldn’t help. But our solutions are equally self-focused:

• We spend hours crafting a perfect, step-by-step plan that will work us out of our hole. 
• We leverage emotional manipulation to get others to agree with our viewpoint. 
• We medicate with drugs and alcohol or the seemingly more innocuous entertainment or shopping

Whatever the case may be, we’re intent on working as hard as we can to solve our problems. 

Our sad outcome 

But like Micah with his magnatiles, when we leverage human initiative to solve our biggest problems we may fix things for a time, but the inevitable outcome is that things come crashing down and we’re worse off than before. This is what God says to Israel:

therefore this iniquity shall be to you

    like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse,

    whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant;

¹⁴ and its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel

    that is smashed so ruthlessly

that among its fragments not a shard is found

    with which to take fire from the hearth,

    or to dip up water out of the cistern.”

v.13-14–

God’s strange invitation

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,

“In returning and rest you shall be saved;

in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”

Isaiah 30:15

After pointing out the futility and cost of their self-driven solutions, God points to the only solution that will actually work. It comes in the form of an invitation; a counterintuitive and strange invitation.

Return.

Rest.

Be saved.

Quit your frantic working. Stop scouring the world for a solution. Give your struggle a rest. Humble yourself and return to the one who created you. Quiet yourself and trust him. There you shall find strength. 

Quit trying over and over again to build your magnatile tower. Take a break, get fresh perspective, and ask a grown up to help. 

This isn’t a new theme in the scripture. It’s the same thing that God says to Moses and Israel at the red sea when Pharaoh’s army is bearing down upon them.  It’s the same thing that Jesus says to the crowds who followed him searching for more bread from heaven when he tells them, “The work of God is to believe the one whom he has sent.”  It’s the same thing that the apostle Paul articulates when he writes the church in Ephesus, “it is not by works that you are saved….”

It’s the Gospel. 

Come to God in trust, rest in him, and find salvation.  

God’s painful, gracious salvation

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you,

    and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.

For the Lord is a God of justice;

    blessed are all those who wait for him.

For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. ²⁰ And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. ²¹ And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. ²² Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!” 

v.18-22

The final words of Isaiah 30 point us to God’s salvation on our behalf, and there are two things I want to point out for us: 

God’s salvation may not immediately solve your problems. God declares that it’s the Lord who will give “the bread of adversity and the water of affliction,” but that that won’t last. 

And, more importantly, He will save you and guide you, declaring, “this is the way, walk in it.” 

Just like once Micah finally calmed down and I was able to sit down with him and talk him through what needed to happen to build his creation, so God when we finally release our need for control and entrust ourselves to him comes close to us and brings clarity about what our next step is. 

And the outcome is always good. 

Try it for yourself

Next time your struck and struggling, step back. Take a breath. Redirect from your fleshly impulse to try harder and work  your way free. Release your need to have the next fifteen steps mapped out. 

Instead, return to your creator. Be quiet. Trust. Ask your teacher what the next right step is and take it. 

God will prove himself.