“Raise your eyes heavenwards;
look on the earth beneath:
though the heavens be dispersed as smoke
and the earth wear out like a garment
and its inhabitants die like flies,
my deliverance will be everlasting
and my saving power will remain unbroken.” Isaiah 51:6 REB

It’s almost as if Isaiah was putting pen to paper today, seeing a world imploding with raging fires and smoke filled skies. Much of my summer has been plagued with air quality alerts, as smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted south.

We experienced the horrific grass fire with it devastating speed that raced across Hawaii’s Maui island.   Lahaina burned,  with all of its resulting grief, pain and loss.  Indeed,  a picture of a world gone awry.

Paul would say that “we see through a glass darkly.” Unable to grasp the full picture of the reality we experience.  Ramifications of a changing climate have come more quickly, than even the most pessimistic science indicated. 

Isaiah offers us a word of hope in a chaotic world.  Addressed to  people displace by war, having seen the destruction of their homeland and  searching for answers, yet it speaks to our time.

Hope can be elusive, when the world knocks you down and despair takes up residence in your heart. Still,  God’s promise is one of deliverance, “Though the heavens be dispersed as smoke
and the earth wear out like a garment . . . my deliverance will be everlasting and my saving power will remain unbroken.” Isaiah 51:6 REB

In those moments when the worst has happened and we are left to pick up the scrambled pieces of our lives, we are not left alone. God’s saving power is ever present, drawing us to places of healing and hope.  For God’s deliverance is everlasting.  There will be no end.