Isaiah 5:18-21 -- On Sweet and Bitter, Light and Dark, Good and Evil

"Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope:
That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!"
Isaiah 5:18-21


Lots of things to look out for here, unless we want woe. :) I like the idea here of not trying to accelerate God's timetable. He knows the timing of all things, and trying to give God deadlines seems to be inviting trouble, and assuming that what we want is more important than what he wants. Instead of demanding, we should just ask for what we want and need, undertstanding that he knows the timing better than we do, and trusting him.

The whole sweet for bitter and bitter for sweet/good vs evil thing I think we do a lot. We get things backwards and value the wrong things sometimes. For example, I had a friend once who went on a trip to Europe, and when he came back he told me the story of going to the beach and being one of the only people with clothes on. He felt uncomfortable, but over the week that he was there he got up the courage to remove his clothing too, and everyone on the beach cheered for him. In his story, it was a triumph. He was proud that he had overcome his antiquated sense of discomfort and freed himself from that outdated mental limitation. Another example is once on my mission we tracted into a woman's house who told us that she had just been to a religious retreat, and as we started to share a message, every time the spirit started to come in, she would start chanting. It soon became clear that we weren't going to be able to share anything with her because she was treating the spirit as an adversary. We said a closing prayer before we left and she was practically shouting her chant as the spirit was trying to speak to her. She clearly thought that she had overcome something evil that day, and it saddens me to think about how many of us do something similar... fight against God, getting things totally backwards, truly thinking that we are overcoming something bad when we resist the Spirit, or that we are accomplishing something good when we harden our hearts against the gospel.

Today, let's be careful to not put ourselves before God and think that we know better than He does. Let's be humble enough to counsel with him and talk to him about everything, and listen. He will tell us the truth of all things by his Spirit, and he will help us to not be led astray as we turn to him. Let's be careful not to drag our sins with us with vanity or cart ropes or whatever, but to ask God to help us see in his light, and let go of those things that are darkening our lives.