FRIDAY: From Sorrow to Singing
BIG IDEA
Even in the Valley, God Offers us a Greater Vision.
MEMORY VERSE
Psalm 23:2 “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.”
Isaiah 35:8-10
“And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
Isaiah closes this chapter with one of the most hope-filled images in all of Scripture. The ransomed of the Lord return with singing. Everlasting joy crowns their heads. Sorrow and sighing flee away. This is not a picture of people who never suffered. These are ransomed people — people who were held captive and bought back at great cost. The joy at the end of Isaiah 35 is not naive. It is hard-won. It belongs to people who walked the highway of holiness through places that were dangerous and dark. Tim Keller, facing terminal cancer, said that he and his wife would never want to return to the prayer life they had before the diagnosis — that the valley had broken them through into something deeper and more real. The goal of the valley is never the valley itself. The goal is what you carry out of it. God does not waste suffering. He redeems it. And on the other side, He replaces the sorrow with a gladness that could not have existed without it.
Reflection:
Is there a past valley in your life that, looking back, produced something in you that could not have come any other way? What did God redeem from that season?
Practical Application:
Write a one-paragraph letter to yourself from the perspective of someone who has already come through your current valley. Describe what God has done and what you have become. Let that vision carry you forward today.
Song of the Day:
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