Daily Devotional • December 5
A Reading from Isaiah 2:12-22
12 For the Lord of hosts has a day
against all that is proud and lofty,
against all that is lifted up and high;
13 against all the cedars of Lebanon,
lofty and lifted up;
and against all the oaks of Bashan;
14 against all the high mountains
and against all the lofty hills;
15 against every high tower
and against every fortified wall;
16 against all the ships of Tarshish
and against all the highly prized vessels.
17 The haughtiness of people shall be humbled,
and the pride of everyone shall be brought low,
and the Lord alone will be exalted on that day.
18 The idols shall utterly pass away.
19 Enter the caves of the rocks
and the holes of the ground,
from the terror of the Lord
and from the glory of his majesty,
when he rises to terrify the earth.
20 On that day people will throw away
to the moles and to the bats
their idols of silver and their idols of gold,
which they made for themselves to worship,
21 to enter the caverns of the rocks
and the clefts in the crags,
from the terror of the Lord
and from the glory of his majesty,
when he rises to terrify the earth.
22 Turn away from mortals,
who have only breath in their nostrils,
for of what account are they?
Meditation
American culture has a lot to say about pride. We are advised to take pride in ourselves, our families, our schools, our sports teams, and our regions, states, and country. Our children are told to “make mommy and daddy proud.” In some ways, having pride is similar to maintaining honor, and I don’t think it is necessarily a bad thing to maintain the honor of your family or to live in an honorable way, but any type of “pride” must be balanced and tempered with an appropriate humility.
Isaiah speaks of a day when “the haughtiness of people shall be humbled, and the pride of everyone shall be brought low, and the LORD alone will be exalted on that day.” Any pride which exalts one’s self or one’s family or one’s country or any aspect of one’s identity over and above God is wrong. He alone deserves to be exalted. Our passage testifies that creation itself proclaims this truth. The command to “turn away from mortals, who have only breath in their nostrils” points to God as Creator of all human beings who can’t even breathe on their own. And the call to “enter the caves of the rocks and the holes of the ground” is a call to hide “when he rises to terrify the earth.”
In other words, the passage calls one to stand in awe and proper fear of the God who alone has the power over His creation. As Psalm 147 states, “the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.” So any thunderstorm or earthquake, and every breath we take has the potential to remind us to stand in awe of the loving God who alone deserves to be exalted. Oh Lord, let it be so.
Melissa Amber Patton is a Pittsburgh native, a writer, and an M.Div. student at Trinity Anglican Seminary. She is currently the music leader at Mosaic Anglican Church in Imperial, Pennsylvania and is pursuing ordination with the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
St. Martin’s by the Lake Episcopal Church, Minnetonka Beach, Minnesota
The Diocese of Kitui – The Anglican Church of Kenya
