Healing

“The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the Lord binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.”

Isaiah 30:26, NIV

Can you feel the warmth of promise cascading down, soaking into your very heart? No more darkness, as the moon is like the sun. And the goodness of the Lord so, so bright the sun can only be pictured as extravagant, complete, full, seven.

In this goodness, the Triune God will bind up our bruises. The places we have been hit, trampled under, stomped on, beaten. Where life has ridden rough shod over us.

He doesn't just bind up our bruises, the beatings from others, but heals the wounds he inflicted. That he inflicted? What do we do with that? We listen. Listen and we will find his grace.

These are the wounds we have hidden. We’ve accepted because it was our fault. We had it coming. We deserved. We erred. We sinned. We reaped the natural consequences. We let the darkness settle around those.

But grace as he heals the wounds he has inflicted:

Grace that judgment does not have the last word, but healing does.

Grace in that his healing comes in and to those very areas of our deepest failure.

Grace in that instead of turning away from us as we had turned away from him, he turns toward us with renewed compassion.

Grace in that our own sin and folly, the things that invited judgment, do not change God’s ultimate intention for our good, our completeness, our shalom.

Here is hope--for anything we’ve been hiding, anything that still seems too sinful, too bad, too dark, the Lord touches and heals. Heals so deeply, so thoroughly that extravagant light is the only picture that can convey it.

And the Light has shown into the darkness, and the darkness shall not overcome it. He is bringing his light, even now. Even the darkest, most deserving areas, let him heal.