August 6, 2022
Daily Devotion:
"Leave This Way… "
Isaiah 30:10-11
New International Version
10 They say to the seers “See no more vision and to the prophets “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things prophesy illusions. 11 Leave this way get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!”
Psychiatrists must surely have a word to describe folks who insist on being self-deceived. But truth avoidance is not peculiar to the peculiar. There are times most of us would prefer self-deception. For example, who wants to hear the doctor tell us we have cancer? Wouldn't some of us wish to be told a lie and be blissfully ignorant of the truth? When there is bad news ahead, our first instinct is to shy away from it. If only that quirk in human nature were the extent of the problem being addressed in our featured passage! Isaiah is not talking about knowledge avoidance, but responsibility avoidance. The people knew very well what the score was. Their problem was wanting to avoid following God's commands. So please just don't mention them. Let's pretend God never spoke about that. Whatever it takes, distract us. Tell us lies!
It is not likely that many of us would ever hear those exact words coming out of our mouths. But there are more ways than one to express denial. Could this explain why some people never read their Bibles? Are they are afraid to hear God telling them explicitly what he expects of them? And could this explain a person's choice of a church? It is no secret that some churches are altogether happy to sugarcoat the stringent demands of the gospel. Week in and week out, pulpits are filled with only pleasant things and comforting psycho babble. Rarely is the listener confronted with God's call to holiness. The problem is: I fall we want to glean from a conversation about God is self-affirmation, then of all people we are most delusional.
The disturbing question is: Are there any ways in which I've subconsciously avoided being confronted by God?
