Waste Places

Where are the waste places in your life? We all have them, whether they are dry, dusty deserts of secret sins and the apathy that accompanies them, or fields piled high with the rubble and casualties of bad decisions and overt rebellion, or just the wilderness that comes from living in a world damaged by sin in general. And sometimes when we look out over the landscape of our lives and see those waste places to our left and to our right, there can be a helplessness and a hopelessness about the whole thing. "I've been so angry and impatient with my kids the past few months and I'm reaping the fruit of dissension, distrust and general chaos in my home, but when my environment is so lacking in peace, what hope can I possibly have for changing my attitude, or that of my kids?" "I've worked so hard at this marriage but it just seems to get worse, and I make so many mistakes, not to mention the fact that I have no hope of controlling what he does!" "How many times am I going to give in to this same temptation? I just don't know if I will ever change!" "Stuck in a dead end job and I'm so discontent... How is anyone supposed to be joyful in circumstances like these?"

But there is hope and there is help for the waste places of our lives. I love this passage in Isaiah 51:

"Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord:
look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.
Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you;
for he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him.
For the Lord comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places
and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of The Lord;
joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song."

Abraham and Sarah had waste places. They had been promised offspring as numerous as the stars and that they would bring blessing to all nations, and here they were barren, trying to get the promise by illegitimate means, laughing at God and quarreling with each other. A seemingly hopeless situation. But God did not leave them in the midst of that desert. Our God is a God who saves. He took an impossible situation, gave them faith, gave them a son, and through them created a people for His praise.

Your sin, the ways you are oppressed, the destruction and the hopelessness in your life are not the end of the story. Ever. We have a God who comforts his people in their waste places, and not just by smoothing things over and planting a few pretty flowers in the midst of the dust. Isaiah says that he makes our wilderness like Eden. J.A. Motyer says it like this: "Like Eden is not simply a figure of beauty and plenty but also one of the absence of the divine curse upon sin. The edict whereby God's fair creation became productive of thorns and thistles (Gen. 3:18) has been revoked and the way opened for wastelands to become places of joy."

And how does he do this? One must read through to the end of Isaiah 53 to see the salvation wrought for us by the Suffering Servant who laid down his abundant life in place of our wasted lives, who exchanged his righteousness for our complete lack of righteousness, and in so doing, has made a way for God to turn even the most destroyed and hopeless parts of our lives into beautiful gardens free of the curse of sin.

"Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem,
for The Lord has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem.
The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God." (Isaiah 52:9-10)

In light of this amazing truth, we are to depart from the waste places of sin, to touch no unclean thing, to pursue purity. But even here, God promises that we shall not go out in haste, in flight, in terror and anxiety, but rather that He himself will go before us and that the God of Israel will be our rear guard. (Isaiah 52:11-12)

God is bigger than our waste places, and he does not leave his people stuck in them forever. There is comfort and redemption for that desert ruin in your life, and when it comes, may you sing the praises of our Great Redeemer so that all the ends of the earth might see his salvation.