Open to Glory
From Isaiah 2 – 15 Upon every high tower, and upon every fortified wall; 16 upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all the beautiful sloops…
In Becoming Dallas Willard, biographer Gary Moon captures his subject's essence as a philosophy professor at the University of Southern California when he writes that Dallas wasn't satisfied with the divisions between philosophical schools. He kept digging underneath the barriers to the deeper unity.
This is the sort of quest on which the checks of God's judgment in Isaiah 2:15-16 insist we go. To the prophet, God displays His willingness and ability to undermine our defensive self assurance, whether the walls we put up our of physical or psychological protection. Our high towers that, we think, will allow us to spot trouble in advance are coming down. God alone is sovereign over the future, and He will not share the honor of provident protection with mere men or their engineering. While protecting His glory, His overarching mastery is insistence that we find the unity beneath.
Even if we pronounce that we have graduated beyond touchy or ostentatious defensiveness, God still has a confrontational message for us through Isaiah. Perhaps we are confident enough to have taken our show on the road, to attempt to win converts to our way of thinking, or to accumulate trading partners like so many assets of Tarshish. Again, the Lord will frustrate such limited and self-serving a substitute for open-minded inquiry. Jonah also took to the seas for his own purposes, and on a ship headed for Tarshish which was likely the sturdiest of its day, suitable to carry precious metals to the ends of the known, Mediterranean world. Yet, when God chose to reveal His glory, and man's limits, there was no doubt even in the minds of the pagan sailors.
What do we make of our splendid structures, then? Do we see in our walls and in our ability to venture on life's waves expressions of His goodness and a readiness to receive His next ministry? If not, if we trust in structure itself and see it as evidence of man's mastery, we can expect the mercy of judgment and deconstruction before we experience peace and understanding.
In Becoming Dallas Willard, biographer Gary Moon captures his subject's essence as a philosophy professor at the University of Southern California when he writes that Dallas wasn't satisfied with the divisions between philosophical schools. He kept digging underneath the barriers to the deeper unity.
This is the sort of quest on which the checks of God's judgment in Isaiah 2:15-16 insist we go. To the prophet, God displays His willingness and ability to undermine our defensive self assurance, whether the walls we put up our of physical or psychological protection. Our high towers that, we think, will allow us to spot trouble in advance are coming down. God alone is sovereign over the future, and He will not share the honor of provident protection with mere men or their engineering. While protecting His glory, His overarching mastery is insistence that we find the unity beneath.
Even if we pronounce that we have graduated beyond touchy or ostentatious defensiveness, God still has a confrontational message for us through Isaiah. Perhaps we are confident enough to have taken our show on the road, to attempt to win converts to our way of thinking, or to accumulate trading partners like so many assets of Tarshish. Again, the Lord will frustrate such limited and self-serving a substitute for open-minded inquiry. Jonah also took to the seas for his own purposes, and on a ship headed for Tarshish which was likely the sturdiest of its day, suitable to carry precious metals to the ends of the known, Mediterranean world. Yet, when God chose to reveal His glory, and man's limits, there was no doubt even in the minds of the pagan sailors.
What do we make of our splendid structures, then? Do we see in our walls and in our ability to venture on life's waves expressions of His goodness and a readiness to receive His next ministry? If not, if we trust in structure itself and see it as evidence of man's mastery, we can expect the mercy of judgment and deconstruction before we experience peace and understanding.
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