The Lord Has Comforted His People

Sing, O heavens! Be joyful, O earth! And break out in singing, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted His people, and will have mercy on His afflicted.

But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me.”

“Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you.

See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before Me.

Your sons shall make haste; your destroyers and those who laid you waste shall go away from you.

Lift up your eyes, look around and see; all these gather together and come to you. As I live,” says the Lord, “You shall surely clothe yourselves with them all as an ornament, and bind them on you as a bride does.

“For your waste and desolate places, and the land of your destruction, will even now be too small for the inhabitants; and those who swallowed you up will be far away.

The children you will have, after you have lost the others, will say again in your ears, ‘The place is too small for me; give me a place where I may dwell.’

Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has begotten these for me, since I have lost my children and am desolate, a captive, and wandering to and fro?

And who has brought these up? There I was, left alone; but these, where were they?’”

Isaiah 49:13-21

God compared His love for His people with a mother’s love for her child. When the people of Israel felt abandoned by God during their exile, they complained: “The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.” But God said, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”

When we are distressed or disillusioned, we may feel abandoned by society, family, and friends, but God does not abandon us. It is a great encouragement that the Lord says, “I have engraved you on the palms of my hands” to indicate how much He knows and protects us. Even if people forsake us, God will never forsake His own.

God never forgets us.

Our Daily Bread – May 8, 2016