Isaiah 40:6-8 (NIV)
A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?” “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”
God began with a hook. He didn’t give Isaiah His message all at once.
A voice said, “Cry out.”
That’s all the voice said at first. Isaiah had to ask, “What shall I cry?”
God put Isaiah in the position of seeking His message. God was preparing Isaiah for the message He was giving. He put Isaiah in a position to emotionally ask and receive before He said what He wanted to say.
Then – God spoke about grass. Plentiful grass. We are like the grass. Plentiful.
Then – God spoke about the flowers. Glorious. We are created to be like the flowers. Glorious flowers.
Have you ever stopped to think of yourself as plentiful and glorious? That’s how God made both you and me. To be one amongst many blades of grass – that means to live with, to be amongst, not on our own. And He made us to have an innate glory; a glory that blazes more in a field with others.
The grass withers and the flowers fall because the breath of the Lord blows on them. I used to take this as plainly as it reads. We are but a life span that God dictates. He owns our days. He knows the beginning from the end. Our days are numbered by Him. God blows his breath and we pass away.
But this morning I saw a new and bold beauty in these words. The passage reads that we are under the breath of God. If we are under His breath, His breath also surrounds us. Imagine our breath over a flower. It moves to surround and cover it as our breath is exhaled. Therefore, we are inside His breath. How beautiful!
Each one of our lives is an exhalation of one breath of God.
Each day we live is part of His breath, part of Him, part of His being, His very element. His glory, His bounty, His anointing, His plan, His creation, His provision of life!
Each one of our lives comes from one of His breaths. We are like a flower – coming from a seed, germinating in the womb, breaking into life, developing into a bud and then into a bloom, opening into a blossom - radiant in the glory of life from one breath from our Creator. Then we progress to faded colour, our petals, and the seeds from our own lives dropping back to the earth and falling until the breath of God has fully exhaled over us, and we are laid to rest back in His entire being and the full knowledge of Him. We come back to His Spirit in full measure.
Prayer: How wonderful are your ways, Lord. So wonderful to ponder. Too wonderful for me to fully comprehend. You always have me within you. You carry me. I can never be separated from you. Even when you extinguish me from life on this earth, I am brought back into full measure of life with you for eternity. Just as you always planned. Thank you. Amen.