In reading the bible today, I ran across this little passage in Isaiah 1:5. It says: “Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints.”
Now, of course Isaiah was preaching to the children of Israel, more specifically to the wickedness of Judah. But I found it interesting, because though he is speaking to Judah, how much more relevant can this be to us today?
Traveling the world has given me a HUGE perspective change on my own culture. We’re taught to question our cultural questions with the formula: “Is it right, wrong, or really just different?” Maybe in America it would SEEM wrong for someone to just spit on your shoe, but in China, that’s perfectly normal. In America, we consider “lateness” as an insult, whereas in most other countries, the don’t really consider the time important, rather the people.
But coming back home, it has TRULY been an eye opener, in more ways than I could have even imagined it to be. I see things in a whole new way now. I see a mother screaming at her child in ignorance rather than hatred. I see a son rebelling because he wasn’t loved enough. We blame so many things on others, when we REFUSE to take care of ourselves. We REFUSE to be corrected. We REFUSE to allow love in.
And so what happens?
We remain ill.
We refuse to take the healing measures to rectify our lives. “It’s too painful. It’s too hard. It’s too SOMETHING.” We make excuses and then wonder why we don’t get better.
But the answer is there. God has told us the problem. The whole HEAD is SICK, and the whole heart faints.
How many people are walking around, desperately wanting their heart to be full. To be loved?ALL OF US. This is a DESPERATE problem in America. We want so desperately to be seen, to be known, to be TOLD THAT SOMEONE LOVES US.
And even when we are, we have difficulty believing it because Our whole head is sick. It is sick because we have been told LIES. Lies from the media, lies from our parents, lies from our friends, lies from our LOVERS.
Lies. Lies. Lies.
The words of truth stop at our mind, and can never actually get into our hurting hearts. God is saying, “Why bother correcting you? You refuse to hear the TRUTH, and therefore you in essence REFUSE to have your hearts comforted.”
So what do we do?
Somehow, we have to start taking our medicine. If the whole head is sick, then we need to take the remedy! We need to feast on the Truth, that is, the Truth that we ARE loved, we ARE wanted, we ARE accepted. We have a LOVELY, Glorious Father in heaven that will Love us REGARDLESS of what we feel, think, act. And if we can remember that truth, if we feast on that, if we Taste and See that the LORD is good, then maybe, our hearts will not be so faint within us. Maybe we’ll be able to give and receive love in a way never imagined before.
Then maybe, we can heal our land.
