Chapters of His Heart: Isaiah 20

Isaiah chapter 20

What an obscure chapter! I'm not going to lie to you I think my mouth hung open a little bit when I read it for the first time. It's chapters like these that give you a fantastic glimpse at God's character. When it comes to getting our attention He will literally use whatever method it takes to turn our heads. Can we just talk about the dedication of Isaiah to God's call? I mean how many of us would walk around naked for three years because The Lord asked us to? I can tell you I would have failed that assignment. Isaiah trusted his whole self to God. He had surrendered his life in it's entirety to God's call. That meant Isaiah followed wherever, however, and whatever God told him, no questions asked. Sadly enough, in our culture it probably would take a person walking down the street with "their buttocks bared" to get our attention. How scary is that? If God needed to get our attention would we hear Him? Are any of us committed enough to be the exposed prophet to our world? I don't think God is calling us to walk through our neighborhoods in the nude, however, I know he is calling us to go against the current of our culture. He has called us to stand out. 1 Peter 2:9 says it like this,

"But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light"

The word 'peculiar' in this verse has two different meanings. The first one is 'strange' or 'odd', and the second one is 'to belonging to'. So, God has called us to be strangers to our world, but in the same breath He quickly claims us as His own. In essence, we may be strange, but we are His. Isn't that a beautiful picture? Yes God has called us to stand out among the world, to sing the praises of the one who called us out of darkness and into His light, but He doesn't hesitate to make it known that, in our strangeness, we belong to Him.