Isaiah 45:5-6 I am the Lord, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,
so that from the rising of the sun
to the place of its setting
men may know there is none besides me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other.

This chapter is quite remarkable in that it mentions Cyrus of Persia by name. This has led many Bible scholars to conclude that the Book of Isaiah was written by two different people, since the person who wrote the first several chapters was certainly not alive when Cyrus came on the scene, and there does seem to be a slight stylistic shift in it as well. That doesn’t bother me either way, because God is certainly able to supply a name prophetically, and the voice of His Spirit is evident throughout the book. Whether this particular passage was written long before Cyrus was born or after he appeared on the world scene, either way it says something very important, which is that God can and does use non-believers for His purposes and His glory. The reason this point is so important is that otherwise, man and the devil would effectively be more powerful than God, which is certainly not the case. God used Jeremiah in making a very powerful statement in this area. In Jeremiah 32 we have the story of one of Jeremiah’s cousins selling him a piece of land in their hometown of Anathoth, even though Jerusalem was under siege by the Babylonians and Anathoth was doubtless overrun with Babylonian troops. Jeremiah himself thought the idea was absurd, but the Lord spoke the famous words in verse 27. “I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” We forget that so easily! We want to be able to manipulate God’s power to make things turn out the way we want them to and when that doesn’t happen, we think that God’s power is insufficient. How foolish! God can and does work miracles, but the biggest problem is that we can’t see the long-term effects of anything, so we don’t have the wisdom that would be called for. We are called to trust and obey, acting as God directs with the full assurance that the final result will be glorious, whatever things might look like in the short term.

When I have tried to share this truth with people in the past, they have often come back at me with, “But how can I hear what God is saying to me?” I’ve had my own struggles with spiritual deafness, but God is the best ENT! I can say without hesitation that the more obedient we are to what we think we hear God saying, even if we sometimes hear Him incorrectly, then the sharper our spiritual hearing will become. Of course, a very important factor is in becoming as familiar as possible with what God has already said in the Bible, because He will not contradict Himself. That’s the best defense against the devil and all his lying spirits, who certainly try to mislead us. We can be sure God is not going to direct us to kill our children, for example, though such deluded people have been in the news within the past few years. I don’t have a perfect track record of obedience to God by any means, but by His grace I’m getting better, and I am deeply grateful.

Father, thank You again for Your grace and mercy toward me. Help me continue to hear You better and better (whatever my physical hearing is doing) so that I may obey You more and more fully, doing Your will on Your schedule for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!