“For a long time I have kept silent,
    I have been quiet and held myself back.
But now, like a woman in childbirth,
    I cry out, I gasp and pant.
15 I will lay waste the mountains and hills
    and dry up all their vegetation;
I will turn rivers into islands
    and dry up the pools.
16 I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,
    along unfamiliar paths I will guide them;
I will turn the darkness into light before them
    and make the rough places smooth.
These are the things I will do;
    I will not forsake them.
17 But those who trust in idols,
    who say to images, ‘You are our gods,’
    will be turned back in utter shame.

‘It is no secret what God can do’, says a popular Christian song.

How we need what God can do – ”the things” He will do (16).

This passage poses a challenge: where does our trust lie really? (17). In what, in whom are we trusting? Where is our confidence? Let us examine ourselves.

I am aware that I have used this quote in the recent past, but it seems relevant to today’s passage:

“When we rely upon organization, we get what organization can do; when we rely upon education, we get what education can do; when we rely upon eloquence, we get what eloquence can do. And so on. But when we rely upon prayer, we get what God can do.” A.C. Dixon.

When we are praying for God to move, there can be a ”long time” of waiting on Him and for Him (14). But when it is time for God to demonstrate His power, things can change very quickly (vv15,16). These verses refer to miraculous things that only God can do.

God was going to bring His people back to their homeland, supernaturally overcoming every obstacle. ‘Now is the time for Israel to be ”delivered” from bondage, just as a baby is delivered during child-birth.’ Tom Hale: ‘Applied Old Testament Commentary’, p.1041.

He still brings people out of captivity to sin, evil, and death by His own miraculous power.

PRAYER: May the world see in the church the works of Jesus, performed in the power of Jesus for the glory of Jesus.