“You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” Isaiah 55:12
Here’s a short history lesson to get some context for this verse. God had chosen the Jewish people to be His people. He had kept His promises made to Abraham and had led Abraham’s descendants out of slavery in Egypt. After wandering 40 years for their disobedience, God led them into the promised land. You would think a 40 year punishment would teach them a lesson but we humans tend to have a very short memory and the Israelites were no exception. They began worshipping other gods and so God warned them time and again but they wouldn’t listen. So finally God allowed them to be carried off into slavery. Again. He’d rescued them from slavery once, but since they didn’t learn their lesson the first time, off they went again. Different slave masters, different era. But still in slavery. It was during that time of exile from the promised land that God gave Isaiah this verse.
Have you ever been in slavery? The answer, of course, is yes. We’ve all been slaves to something. Have you ever experienced the joy of being freed from slavery? The truth is that we’ve all be freed from slavery, but not all of us have experienced the joy. Why is that? It’s because we don’t choose joy. God can make the mountains sing and trees clap if He wants to. But He won’t force us to feel anything. We choose what we feel. Too often, we choose to live in the emotional drudgery that accompanies a life of slavery. We choose to live in fear, or in anger and bitterness, or in regret. We sometimes talk about Satan stealing our joy but that’s a lie. He can’t steal it because it’s our choice. When we choose these other emotions, we are choosing to give up our joy. But if we would daily choose joy, the fear and anger and all the rest would fade away.
There’s one thing I want you to catch. When Isaiah wrote these verses, the people were still in exile. He was instilling hope in them because he knew what was coming. He knew God was going to rescue His people. But how easy do you think it was to feel joyful when your life consisted of living as a slave in a land that wasn’t “home” to them? In the midst of that awful situation, God gives them these words of hope, the promise of a better time ahead. That’s what He says to us today. We may not be in slavery to another human, but we struggle with so many temptations. In fact, we may be a slave to some addiction, or to a situation we would love to change. God is telling us to hang on. There’s a better day coming! No matter what your circumstance today, a day of joy and peace is on the way. What a day of rejoicing that will be!