Psalm 23:3b

“He leads me along the right paths, for His name’s sake.” 

“I will set in the desert the cypress…that they may see and know…that the hand of the Lord has done this.” –  Isaiah 41:19-20

Have you ever seen something out of place or where it didn’t belong?   I always chuckle when I see a stadium full of fans with one lone person cheering for the opposite team, and it’s not uncommon to see a particular child of mine wearing shorts and t-shirts with snow on the ground.  Growing up, people would take pictures of our pets because our black cat loved to curl up on top of our big yellow lab and take naps.  I’m sure you can think of some similar things that seem out of place.  We’ve seen those pictures where we’re supposed to point out the things that don’t belong.  These verses in Isaiah talk about that.  I mean, can you imagine a tree in the desert?  

In Isaiah chapter 41, Isaiah the prophet is writing to the Israelites who are being held captive in Babylon, however, when they were captured, they didn’t just lose their freedom.  Their identity as a people was taken away from them.  Their city and temple were destroyed.  They were given Babylonian names to use instead of their Hebrew names (i.e., Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego). Many lost family members.  The Babylonians even tried to take away their God (Daniel 3).  So much had been lost, and their land of Milk and Honey had been turned into a wasteland. Metaphorically, they were back in the desert wilderness they had stumbled through for forty years.  

In our collection of In the Wilderness He Gives Grace devotions,  we talked about the 4 lessons we can learn from the wildernesses of life.  One of these is “The wilderness is not the end.”  Praise God, that there’s always more.  After 70 years of captivity, God was sending a promise through Isaiah that the wilderness was not forever.  Verses 18-19 of the same chapter give vivid descriptions of how He will restore them to their land and the land to them. 

“I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive.I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together…”

Why was God going to do these things?  Water in the wilderness?  Trees in the desert? We find out in the next verse. 

“that they may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the Lord has done this…”

God was making a way that when people looked at it, they could only say,  “God did that.”  Was the water for the people?  Was the tree to shade them?  Well, they could do those things, but the biggest reason was for God to be glorified.

We see the same thing in the 23rd Psalm.  “He (God) leads me on the paths of righteousness.”  Oh, what a comfort to know that God is with us and leads us, but the next line reminds us that He’s not just doing this for our sake.  It continues, “For his name’s sake.”

Gift-giving is my love language.  Almost anyone who has ever come to my house has left with a gift.  The same goes for my kids.  It’s not often that we go out to a store where we don’t get some kind of treat.  Yes, I know,  I’m setting hard precedents, and I’m trying to get better at it, but my middle child asked his dad the other day, “Why does mommy get us stuff?” 

 He replied, “Because Mommy likes to give you good things.”  God likes to give us good things. (Luke 11:11-13), But His good things are for the sake of HIS NAME, not for us. 

The other night, we got out of the car and headed into the house after running errands.  My middle son stopped and looked up. 

“Mom.  Look at all of the stars you can see!”

My kids know I have a love for the moon and stars, annoying people with my information, sitting out at night with my telescope searching for Saturn’s rings or comets.  I replied, 

“Yes!  Did you know that God has named each one of those stars?” (Psalm 147:4)  

I love how the stars declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1), and while I can appreciate and enjoy their beauty.  God didn’t make them for me.  He did it for his own name.  Justin Taylor wrote in a blog, For the Sake of God’s Name, 

God works for both His glory and our good, but the Bible puts a priority on God’s

interest over ours as the basis for his actions.

In the last chapter of Jonah, God caused a plant to grow up and give Jonah shade in the heat of the day.  However, when the plant was eaten, Jonah complained.  How could God take away something like that from him?  Jonah was looking at the wrong purpose of the plant. Yes, he could receive good things from the plant, like shade, but in reality, the plant was there to show who God is.  Let’s learn to see “trees in the wilderness” and realize that it’s there to point us and others to God for His glory. Let us be “trees in the wilderness” out of place in this world, so we can point to Him as well.