When the country of Judah (Israel was divided into two countries, Israel and Judah) was confronted by the Assyrians, their dreaded enemy, they didn’t call on God for protection; instead, they tried to figure out their own plan. They tried negotiation and then buying off their attackers, but neither worked. They had hoped the enemy would accept the appeasement and leave, but they didn’t. The Assyrians double-crossed them, and Judah realized they had completely miscalculated this shrewd enemy. Finally, they realized they had nowhere to go but God. One would think that God would turn them down. They certainly didn’t deserve his help. They had only come to him because everything they tried first failed. God was their last resort.
O LORD, be gracious to us; we long for you. Be our strength every morning, our salvation in time of distress” (Isaiah 33:2).
Isaiah’s words describe the people of Judah and us in our self-made dilemmas. Amazingly, God is willing to meet us, even when we come to him as our last resort. Isaiah’s message is to people who have messed up. It’s for people who haven’t trusted God—instead, they trusted others, and that certainly didn’t work out. Like Judah, we have leaned on the wrong people, and they let us down. Worse, we have done this over and over.
The amazing thing is that when we finally do trust God, we wonder why we waited so long to trust Him. Why did we choose this path of self-destruction? It’s because we must first reach a place of brokenness before we are willing to repent. Isaiah describes what it is like to reach that place—where failure has left us broken.
“Look, their brave men cry aloud in the streets; the envoys of peace weep bitterly. The highways are deserted, no travelers are on the roads. The treaty is broken, its witnesses are despised, no one is respected. The land mourns and wastes away (Isaiah 33:7-9).
When we finally reach this place of brokenness, we begin to see the utter folly of not trusting God and following him. The wonderful thing is that in this place, God responds:
“Now will I arise,” says the LORD. “Now will I be exalted; Now will I be lifted up” (Isaiah 33:10).
In our brokenness, God responds. When we face our failure and turn to him, he responds. Now it’s time. “Now I can help.”