Blotting out
by Eden Bishop
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Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob; but you have been weary of me, O Israel! (Isaiah 43:22)
I recently purchased an iPad to use as a tool for my university studies. What is fantastic about my iPad – aside from the novelty of writing on a screen and its ease of portability – is that it is very easy to blot out mistakes and start over. All it takes is a double tap of the Apple Pencil.
The text for today has a wonderful image of God as the blotter of our sins. God blots out our mistakes and allows us to start over. However, in this text, the Israelites have failed to call out to God to blot out their sins. Instead, they have grown weary of calling on and honouring God. The people have grown tired of God and have not trusted him to provide for them. This meant they could not have the advantage of being close to God or being in a relationship with him.
Both the Israelites and God bear the burden of sin and the distance between God and his people. Not calling on God is itself a sinful act because it shows a lack of trust in him. This leads to a lack of closeness with God, and we can easily become weary of ‘duties’. God bears the burden in two ways. The first: the sins of the people are going unatoned for, un-blotted out, and are thus piling up. The second: God is pained that his people don’t want to be in a relationship with him.
Yet, despite all this, God still provides deliverance and forgiveness; he ‘blots out [our] transgressions’. God does this for his own sake: he loves his people so much that he will not remember their sins so that he can be in a relationship with them. This text encourages us not to grow weary of calling on God and being in his presence or offering sacrifices in response to his great love. We should not grow tired of bearing fruit out of the relationship with him that he has brought us into.
Dear Heavenly Father, we are sorry for the times we have grown weary of calling on you and have failed to bear fruit or offer our sacrifices to you. Please forgive us and continue to bring us back into your presence. Amen.
Eden Bishop lives in Adelaide and is a member at St Paul Blair Athol. She attends the University of Adelaide and is in the final year of her Advanced Economics degree. Eden enjoys reading (particularly The Lord of the Rings), playing the piano in church, knitting and learning fun facts about dinosaurs.
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