Musings From A Rolling Eyed Turtle

What do you do when you don’t know what to do?  Panic?  Call for help?  Give up?  Hide?  Pretend you know what to do?  Just plow ahead anyway?  For many of us, it’s hard to admit it when we don’t know what to do.  On top of that, we often respond to that which we don’t know with the same management strategies that we’ve relied on in other situations.  What would you do if a great army was coming against your nation? The kingdom of Judah faced such a situation.  They didn’t do any of those things described above.  In fact, their response is very much worth our consideration:  “O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”  (2 Chr 20:12)  You might wonder, what good does it do to simply have our eyes on God? Where our eyes go to or turn to is very important.  The psalmist wrote:  “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?”  (Ps 12

In my last post, I wrote that I was quite intrigued by Isaiah 30:18, specifically one particular phrase:  “he exalts himself to show mercy to you.”  (ESV) I read another verse in Isaiah that is also so very intriguing:  “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” (Isa 43:25) The big question that comes to mind is that why would He blot out my transgressions for His sake?  I would have thought that He does that for my sake! So, I turned to other versions of the Bible to see if they could shed some light: “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins.  (NASB) “I, I am the one who blots out your rebellious deeds for my sake; your sins I do not remember.”  (NET) ‘I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.”  (KJV) “But I, yes I, am the one who takes care of your sins—that’s what I do. I don’t keep a l

I recently read a very interesting verse in the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible.  While I’m not entirely sure what to make of it, I am very intrigued by it.  The verse is:  “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you .  For the Lord is a God of justice;   blessed are all those who wait for him.” (Isa 30:18 – emphasis mine)   If God exalts himself to show mercy, what could that possibly mean?   I looked at some other versions of the Bible in an effort to answer that question:   “He waits on high to have compassion on you” (NASB)   “therefore he will rise up to show you compassion”  (NIV)   “he sits on his throne, ready to have compassion on you”  (NET)   Comparing versions didn’t really seem to help so I looked at some online dictionary definitions of the word exalt.  Exalt is to:   1.  Raise in rank, power, or character; 2.   E levate by praise or in estimation, glorify; 3.   Raise high; 4.   En