This may be hard to believe when we are given verses like,

“…so their root will be as rottenness,
And their blossom go up like dust;
For they have rejected the law of the
LORD of hosts”

Isaiah 6:24

God’s wrath is definitely evident in Isaiah. But it is so important that we look at the reason that God disciplines his children and what the ultimate end of the correction is.

Israel was consistently good at one thing: rebelling against their perfect Father and forgetting his deeds of salvation.

“‘Children have I reared and brought up,
but they have rebelled against me
The ox knows its owner
and the donkey its master’s crib,
but Israel does not know,
my people do not understand.’”

Isaiah 1:2-3

God’s people rebelled against his Fatherly rearing and masked their evil deeds with religious piety—sacrifices, ceremonies, prayers— (1:11:-15) that became nothing but evil deeds before God’s eyes (1:16).  The root problem? Their hearts did not delight in their Maker, but in their possessions and hand-made gods:

“Their land is filled with silver and gold,
and there is no end to their treasures…
Their land is filled with idols;
They bow down to the work of their
hands”

Isaiah 2:7-8

I think it’s helpful to look at this situation from God’s perspective (at least whatever small glimpse of it we can grasp) . He has created a people to be his possession and his delight; a people that he could make happy with his abundant blessings; a people who would be devoted making him known by establishing justice and righteousness. He made covenants with his people; he rescued them out of Egypt’s slavery; he provided them with everything they needed to love and obey him—

 But they were not satisfied.  

His heart in anguish, God disciplined his people to turn them back to himself. He stripped them of their earthly treasures that he may be their only Treasure. He tore down their self-made gods and proved himself to be the only God Almighty.  

This picture of God’s discipline in Isaiah should evoke both fear and worship from all of God’s people. God will not settle for taking second place to another god—to anything we delight in more than him. When we commit this type of idolatry, we are not fully satisfied and  we disgrace the name of our Father by not recognizing his value. My favorite modern theologian, John Piper, puts it this way:

“Woe to us if we get our satisfaction from the food in the kitchen and the TV in the den and the sex in the bedroom with an occasional tribute to the cement blocks in the basement! God wills to be displayed and known and loved and cherished and worshiped.”

 We must beg God for mercy, that he would be gentle as he sets our hearts back on him.

God’s ultimate end in his discipline is seen in Isaiah’s sections about the era of restoration and deliverance. He compares this era to a bountiful banquet exclusively for God’s people—both Jew and Gentile. At the banquet, he will satisfy his people with rich food and aged wine. This satisfaction represents the spiritual satisfaction that this era also brings:

“The Sovereign Lord will wipe way the tears
from all faces
He will remove the disgrace from his people
from all the earth”

Isaiah 25:8

Praise our God who will not let us be less than completely satisfied; who will not let us be satisfied in anything less than the ultimate gift and treasure—himself.

God is so big and so great and you can just hear his pleas through his servant, Isaiah, that his people would just get it. And I have a strong feeling that we are in desperate need of that same message. May be never be too easily satisfied.

Below is one of my favorite quotes, something for you to nibble on (but not be satisfied with) as you head out:

“If you don’t feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great.”
— John Piper (A Hunger for God)

 Papers and Projects. Flights and finals.
Anxiety.
Wikipedia and weddings. Garbage bags and goodbyes.
Depression.
Finances and fundraisers. Migraines and missions trips
and checkout and check lists

 Hold on—you’re losing it. Grasp tighter 

But when will you realize that no matter how tight your fists are clenched—fingernails stabbing into sweaty palms—you are holding on to absolutely nothing? You are struggling to control your hours, your success, your finances, your future.

 Let go. Uncurl your fingers, let loose your futle grasp. 

Who are you to think that your vain offerings—of grades, of piety, of ministry—could ever save you from the Almighty?

 “For by fire will the Lord enter into judgment
and by his sword, with all flesh;
and those slain by the Lord shall be many”

Isaiah 66:16

 When will you remember His sacrifice, His suffering, His substitution? 

“because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.”

Isaiah 53:12

Do you believe it was enough? Then why do you still work, toil, think that your failures have power enough to loosen his Mighty embrace? 

“For thus said the Lord God, the Holy
One of Israel
In returning and rest you shall be
saved
In quietness and in trust shall be your
Strength.”

Isaiah 30:15

Stop. Rest. Trust. Believe.  

 Be satisfied in being His. For you are nothing apart from being His creation—His beloved—His possession—and His bride.  

“I have made, and I will bear you;
  I will carry and will save”

                                                                                                                                           Isaiah 46:4

He has chosen you. And He will fight for you until your soul is satisfied in Him.

 And yet still your hands are gripped tight and they shake. Your fears are masked in worldly costumes—report cards, bank accounts, resumes and recommendations.

 But, really, you tremble at Failure.  You fear Imprisonment and the Loss of Respect.

 “But now thus says the LORD,
He who created you, O Jacob,
He who formed you, O Israel:
Fear not, for I have redeemed you; 
I have called you by name, you are mine.”  

Isaiah 43:1

 Look to the heavens. Take your eyes of your checklist for long enough to look to the heavens– and wait. In eager expectation. For the wondrous joy that is coming. For His Glory to be Revealed, to light up the whole earth.

 “The sun shall be no more your light by day,
nor for brightness shall the moon give you light;
but the Lord will be your everlasting light,
And your God will be your glory.”

Isaiah 60:6

“and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
So shall your God rejoice over you.”

Isaiah 62:5

 Rejoice over your Bridegroom, O my soul! Be captivated by this fierce Love. Oh rebellious, stubborn heart, stop fighting the One who will not relent. Be satisfied [be still] in the Hope that you are promised and in the Forgiveness in which you now stand.

I googled “Christian gifts” and came to Christiangiftsplace.com—an online store featuring anything “Christian,” you could possibly think of (though, after several minutes of searching, I wasn’t able to find a Bible…). Their website offers a wide variety of gifts ranging from stationary to an entire section of Christian “Linens.” Their big sale item: “Barbwire Cross Embroidered Beddings” just marked down to $246.40.  Also a great buy: “Faith, Hope, & Love Finger Towels” only $12.00. When did the truths of the gospel become interior design essentials? A common thread (no pun intended) among these gifts is that they highlight things like God’s forgiveness, love, and grace. These are all true attributes of God, but they are not all-encompassing. Have we lost the full picture of our Almighty God?  Are we forgetting that our God, in his goodness, hates the sin of humankind and is coming to judge our world in righteousness? Do we fail to realize that the God who has the power to raise his Son from the dead is also mighty enough to shake our earths foundations? Or have we become so comfortable with his grace and his abundant blessing that we have forgotten the beautiful fullness of his character?

The book of Jeremiah addresses this issue in its proclamation against Israel in a time when they had a similarly limited view of God. Like Hosea, Jeremiah came as a critic of the sinful society around him. He spoke against the adulterous people who had broken their covenant relationship with God. Israel spoke falsehood and not truth (9:3), they had become adulterers who kept wicked company (9:2) and, most foundational of all, they refused to know God (9:6).  Rather than being a picture of God’s kingdom in love, justice, and righteousness, Israel went after their own hearts and followed their own gods (9:14) because they did not have a full understanding of Yahweh.

There is no doubt that the lawless Israel was also lying, stealing, and breaking countless other laws that God set before them through Moses. But I love that this is not what God chooses to focus on. He goes to the heart of the issue. Israel’s transgression of other laws is a symptom of the fatal disease of holding a small view of God. In the midst of their sin, they remained, arguably, very “religious” people. They believed in Yahweh and in their privileges under the Davidic dynasty; they awaited the “manifest destiny” of Judah, and trusted in inviolability of Zion. In other words, they held onto the parts of religion that gave them a sense of security. According to the book of Jeremiah, however, this security was false and based on an inappropriately small view of an almighty and free God. With this tunnel-vision view of God, they believed that he always dwelt nearby in the temple and that he would always be kind towards them. God corrects this view by proclaiming his vastness:

“Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.”

Jeremiah 23:23-24

And by declaring his just discipline:

“Behold, I will refine them and test them,
for what else can I do, because of my people?”

Jeremiah 9:7

Israel limited God by holding to their own interpretation of his promises and by believing that he would be pleased by their traditions and popular theology. They believed in the promises given at Sinai and in those proclaimed through David—promises of covenant, protection, and blessing—but failed to see the whole picture of God. They failed to see a free God whose goodness and sovereignty allows him to punish rebellious people.

I fear that many religious people today hold a similarly small view of God. We plaster verses and symbols about his grace, kindness, and forgiveness on our car bumpers and our finger towels, but have we lost sight of his vastness? Do we praise a God who fills heaven and earth?

I pray that Christians will have a radical, living faith in the God of the Bible—a peace in times of suffering that stems from their trust in God’s freedom and goodness, even as he sends times of trial.

When I fed them, they were satisfied;
When they were satisfied, they became proud;
then they forgot me.

Hosea 13:6

 Of all the verses that describe Israel’s rebellion, this verse sticks out to me the most. Israel’s act of disloyalty, their affairs with other gods, actually stemmed from God’s love—and from their perverted reception of it.  His children did not receive His abundant provision with humble appreciation. Rather than their satisfaction leading them to worship, as it should, it led them to pride.

 Satisfaction implies trust. When you are satisfied, you don’t strive as much as when you’re in need. By all means, God’s blessings should make us satisfied—that should be the constant position of our hearts before such a gracious God! But we need to be satisfied  in Him. This is where the Israelites made their tragic misstep. The abundance of blessings led them to trust themselves, and they wrongly thought that their own accomplishments provided their abundant blessings.

 This picture is tragic: a love so deep, so sacrificial, is trampled by the selfish perversion of adulteress love. And yet, this is the picture that God gives of the relationship between himself and his people, Israel.  God knew his children’s spirit of unfaithfulness when he entered into eternal Covenants with us (through Noah, Abraham , Moses, and David).  And still, He blessed his children with the perfect Garden, with a renewed Earth after the flood, with deliverance from slavery into the Promised Land—with food falling from the sky!! God describes His immense love for the Israelites through the prophet Hosea:

 “When Israel was a child, I loved him, 
and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more they were called,
the more they went away;
they kept sacrificing to the Baals
and burning offerings to idols.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk;
I took them up by their arms,
but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of kindness,
with the bands of love,
and I became to them as one who eases
the yoke on their jaws,
and I bent down to them and fed them”
Hosea 11:1-4 

My heart cannot help but delight in the beautiful image of a tender, patient father bent low over his son and holding him tight by his hands as he learns to take his first steps. And yet, in the face of this image, the reality of Israel’s rebellion becomes all the more gut-wrenching. 

Like Gomer, Israel turns her back on her only true Lover and commits herself to gold idols, riches, and worldly accomplishments. This paralleled story would not be complete unless God commanded Hosea to take Gomer back, and to continue in unwavering love for her:

“‘Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.’” Hosea 3:1

Again, Hosea obeys. He buys the adulteress back—forfeiting a large sum of money as well as his reputation. And yet, this only makes Hosea’s love for Gomer all the more praiseworthy and glorious. 

Hosea is a hard book to read.  It can be depressing to read about the rebellious and adulterous hearts of the Israelites who refuse to simply rest in Perfect Love. It is also convicting to realize that my heart has the same defiant drives. But, most of all, it is God-exalting. God’s steadfast love for his people is impossible to miss. We are left in awe of a God  who promises to heal Israel of their rebellion and love them freely (14:4); who vows to bring make Israel abundant and beautiful again (14:5) and  who offers refreshment and protection as they dwell beneath  his shadow (14:5). 

What a Beautiful God. What a Perfect Love.

Levin’s heart was set on a wife. Kitty as a wife, to be specific. And when she rejected him, it took him months to envision a new path for his life without her. He finally found it: the pursuit of new agricultural techniques for his farm. He puts the idea of a wife to death, though his heart had always longed for one, and devotes his affections to better farming. Although his propensity for achievement grows with his new life plan, he is risking the death of his soul’s passion: to love and to unite his life with another. 

But just when he is about to embark on this new path, his dying brother, Nicholas comes to stay with him. Nicholas’ presence becomes the presence of death for Levin.  He had  planned out his steps so carefully just to realize that he had “really forgotten and overlooked one little circumstance in life—that death would come and end everything, so that it was useless to begin anything, and that there was no help for it.” In a later conversation with a friend, Levin claims that, “when you have once grasped it clearly, everything becomes so insignificant!” But Levin does not take on a completely fatalistic worldview: he admits that life loses some of its charm when you think about death, “but is more peaceful.” His realization of the reality of death takes Levin far enough away from his natural achievement-crazy lifestyle to take the risk of meeting Kitty again at his friend’s dinner party.

 Kitty’s heart also comes to the dinner party prepared. Months before, Kitty’s life had lost all purpose: she rejected Levin’s proposal for the possibillity of marrying Vronsky—only to find that Vronsky loves her good friend Anna. Kitty’s family mistakes her broken heart and loss of meaning as illness and she is taken to heal near a famous Italian well. Kitty’s time at the well is surrounded by death: the sickest of Russia and Europe gather there, hoping to be

healed. It is not necessarily the overwhelming image of death that impacts Kitty, however, but the model of one who dedicates her life to those who at death’s door. Varenka, a young woman at the well, takes care of the invalids in a way

 that brings hope and purpose back into Kitty’s perspective: “In Varenka she saw that it was only necessary to forget oneself and to love others in order to be at peace, happy, and lovely. And such a person Kitty wished to be.”

 Although Kitty was not in particular danger of physical death when she went to the Italian well, the life of her heart (her ability to love) was at risk. Her heart was broken and incapable of love. Varenka’s treatment of death gives Kitty a selfless picture of love that she can believe in and take hold of. In this, Kitty’s heart is saved and mended and prepared

to enter into a loving marriage with Levin.

Levin’s and Kitty’s encounters with death save them from their own kinds of death and prepare them to weave their

lives together in marriage. Levin has realized that since death is the end-all, it is futile to focus solely on progressing in one’s work. As a result, he is pulled away from his farm project long enough to pursue his future bride. Kitty is healed of meaninglessness and a broken heart and recognizes that one can find purpose in selfless love.Kitty finds enough significance in

life to love Levin while Levin finds life’s menial tasks insignificant enough to love Kitty.

After she left, I couldn’t help feeling extremely disappointed. I got so sad that I finally had to stop and ask myself what was going on inside of me—what was causing this exaggerated emotion over such a small event?

Then I remembered my last post: The god of Expectation. I left that post with an arrogant air: Good thing my God is the God of the Bible and He’s unchanging. And it’s true—except when I dethrone Him and, along with Anna, place my hope in my emotional expectations.

When I recognized my similarity with this tragic character, I searched desperately for a mindset shift: how do I anticipate things without making them my god? Is it wrong to get excited about a weekend with my roommate?  I don’t think it is. But I think that that sort of expectation needs to rest loosely in the frame of an ultimate expectation that I have for each day: that God will be glorified.  

I will always be making plans and, knowing me, always getting excited about them. But, ultimately, my emotional investments need to be towards the only thing that I know will occur: God will glorify Himself. His glory is the foundation for my joy.

This is not to say that I will never feel disappointed again, or that I will never have other expectations. But when I start to feel that disenchantment, I can remember that my ultimate expectation is always being fulfilled—even through a change of plans.

 I have the greatest expectation for this weekend: I expect that God will be glorified. And He will be—as my roommate reconnects and refuels with her family, and asI have more time to spend alone with God. Or maybe something completely unexpected will happen. No matter what this day holds, He is my rock; His glory, my hope.

But when those moments arrive, we rarely meet what we expected; joy makes a complicated tangle with disappointment, excitement with fear, support with jealousy.

This disenchantment—shattered expectation—is a central theme in Leo Tolsloy’s Anna Karenina. The central character, Anna, experiences this disenchantment when, though she gets what she thought she desired, it does not turn out to be as great as she expected. Anna’s firm reliance on her emotional expectations leads to a complete breakdown when things don’t turn out the way she rehearsed.

Anna is married to a much older, affluent politician and becomes discontent with her marriage when she sparks an affair with the much younger Vronsky—a romantic, lively, and attractive bachelor. Anna suffers deeply in her bondage to Karenin and she longs for the day when she can be free to love Vronsky. Once she is finally loosed from her marriage, however, Anna is far from the lovers’ paradise that she envisioned. As she lives this life of disillusionment, she changes, “both morally and physically,” for the worse (Tosltoy 358). Anna’s beautiful charisma allows her to mask her disenchantment, but inside she spirals into a pool of jealousy, anxiety, and feelings of rejection that drive her to her suicidal death on the train tracks.

Anna’s beautiful charisma allows her to mask her disenchantment, but inside she spirals into a pool of jealousy, anxiety, and feelings of rejection that drive her to her suicidal death on the train tracks. Her emotional expectations for a perfect life with Vronsky had become her god—everything that she lived for and worshipped—and when that god failed, Anna’s world fell apart.

In the nineteenth century, Russian communist activists sought to usurp the people much of this freedom. Their strategy? Disguise the responsibility as a burden that humankind is not fit to bear and, now, doesn’t have to. A simple exchange (the people’s freedom for the state’s benefits) would relieve the depressed Russia of their poverty, famine, and unstable government. Give up your freedom and life will be easy. Eat, work, and be protected.

The question looming in nineteenth century becomes: what is the value of freedom?

This is the backdrop for Brothers Karamazov and, specifically, for Ivan’s famous poem, “The Grand Inquisitor.” In the poem, a cardinal confronts a post New Testament Jesus Christ. The cardinal opposes Jesus’ answers to Satan during the Temptation. He says that, rather than denying Satan’s promptings to test God’s power and perform miracles, he should have obeyed them. Such an obvious display of God’s power, the cardinal argues, would have made it clear to everyone that he was the Savior. He should have made himself so obvious that people literally wouldn’t have the choice to not follow him. Freedom to choose Christ would be gone, yes, but think of how many more people would be saved. Christ gave us the freedom to choose a life of righteousness or one of sinfulness but, in our sinful nature, how many of us will actually choose righteousness? Freedom, then, becomes a burden that ultimately damns rather than saves. The root of Ivan’s conviction is the belief that humankind is completely unable to choose what is good and would be better off forfeiting the opportunity to choose to someone more fit. Which, in the case of the “Grand Inquisitor,” is Satan. (Scary.)This view ignores the God-given faculties of reason and conscience, or at least undermines them, and devalues the dignity of humanity.

Is the freedom to choose really a burden, like Ivan so ardently believes? Maybe. But it is a burden that humankind was created to bear and is equipped to bear. Satan is a master of enslavement and desires to take away humans’ freedom to choose because, with it, he takes away so much of God’s reflection in us. The freedom to choose and the responsibility to use our rationale and our conscience is essential to humankind’s dignity. It is part of bearing His image.

What is the value of freedom? Invaluable.

In Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky dares to ask the question the origin of this conviction. The stage for this discussion is a criminal trial in 19th Century Russia. Dmitri Karamazov has been indicted for the murder of his father, Fyodor Karamazov. Although the evidence is against Dmitri, the reader, along with a few people in the courtroom, know that he is innocent. The trial proceeds just as expected, with little to no convincing evidence on the side of the defendant. Before the jury is sent off, the defendant has a chance to give his final speech.

In his defense of the innocent Dmitri, the nationally renowned lawyer, Fetyukovich, challenges the idea that Dmitri actually killed his “father.” His supply of concrete evidence is scant, so he resorts to arguing that, even if Dmitri did kill Fyodor Karamazov, he did not commit patricide because Fydor never played the role of his father. He argues that if a father never answers his son’s question, “Why should I love you?” the son is in no way obligated to the father: “Love for a father that is not justified by the father is an absurdity, an impossibility” (Brothers Karamazov 744). To be honest, the whole idea of “an impossibility” to love anyone didn’t settle well with me. Still, I gave Fetyukovich the benefit of the doubt. I trusted him: a wise, learned man defending the truth.

Fetyukovich continues challenging traditional method of forming convictions: “It is our duty and obligation to foster only those convictions that are justified by reason and experience, that have passed through the crucible of analysis, in a word, to act sensibly” (745). I, like the Russian courtroom, responded with “loud applause” to this passage. What a refreshing concept: fighting for convictions that are founded and tested. See, I knew I could trust him. I was sold to Fetyukovich’s side—after all, he was on the side of the truth. When the prosecutor responded, however, my initial conviction was challenged.

Prosecutor Ippolit Kirillovich is clearly horrified by Fetyukovich’s speech and asks, “If every child ought to ask his father, ‘Father, why should I love you?’—what will become of us?” (749). Kirillovich claims that his opponent is not merely challenging a traditional view of convictions, but attempting to correct “the Gospel and religion” and holding up a “false image of Christ.” Fetyokovich’s morality is “tested by the analysis of reason and sensible ideas” and creates a world where love, which cannot be “created from nothing,” is only an obligation when it is earned. A world founded solely off of this “tested” human conviction is a world in which it makes perfect sense to judge others with the same measure they judge us.

“Yet Christ tells us,” Kirillovich points out, “to beware of doing so, because that is what the wicked world does, whereas we must forgive and turn our cheek” (749). We must hold onto convictions that do not make sense—at least not in Fetyukovich’s world. Christ wants us to love where love is not earned. This is not with a love created from nothing, but a love created from the most sure thing—His love. He wants us to forgive when it doesn’t make sense. Not because we spurn reason, but because He forgave us—when it didn’t make sense. And so Kirillovich brings me back to the foundations and I am warned not to correct the Gospel “from the rostrum of truth and sensible ideas.”

Dostoevsky still troubles me, though. Are we to believe these truths coming from Kirillovich? It is Fetyukovich, after all, who is fighting to acquit the innocent Dmitri. In the end, however, the jury sides with Kirillovich, much to the surprise of the crowd. Maybe Dostoevsky is making a statement, then, against those who side with Kirillovich’s biblical worldview and therefore miss the truth and fail to carry out justice.