Daily Prophets
Day 166
“Listen to Me, House of Jacob, all that are left of the House of Israel…I will carry you and rescue you. Bear in mind what happened before, I am God and there is none else. Listen to Me, you stubborn of heart, I am bringing My victory close;…I will grant triumph in Zion and to Israel my beloved.”(Isaiah 46:4,9,12,13).
The prophet known as Second Isaiah is again trying to get the attention of the people, asking them to listen and hear God. This is so important to all of the prophets and, as I am reading this chapter today, I sense an urgency by the prophet for the people to really listen with their entire being and to take in that God is here with them. It is a reminder of God promising Jacob that God would be with him in Egypt, when he was going to meet Joseph. These words are as relevant today as they were 2500 years ago. We need to listen to the call of our souls, the call of God, “God’s eternal cry”, as Rabbi Heschel speaks about in God in Search of Man, pg. 291. This cry, this call resounds in our ears and in our beings yet, as the prophet is indicating, we don’t hear nor listen to it.
Yet, the cry is for us to allow ourselves to carried and rescued as we have been forever. God and the prophet are calling us to bring up our history and see how often we have been rescued by a power greater than ourselves, how often we have been carried to safety, to a homeland, to a place of refuge. This only happens when we hear and listen to the call of our souls, the call of freedom and both emanating from God. We get so used to listening to the noise in our heads, the noise and mendacity by another(s), we keep forgetting the covenant and the force that carried us and rescued us so many times before. The phrase, ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ is resounding in my head right now, as we all have thought, said, prayed these words or some similar, expressed gratitude that what is happening to another is not happening to us. This is not a callous statement, rather I believe it is a recognition of our gratitude and our hearing and listening to the “eternal cry of God” for us to do the next right thing, to forego our desire to worship idols that are physical, ie homes, buildings, statues, etc; or abstract, ie money, power, fame, etc. God is reminding us that we need to mature ourselves in order to handle the successful living God is providing for us. How many often and how many of us become deaf to “God’s eternal cry” once we begin to achieve some measure of success and become less than joyous in our inner lives?
Listening is a key factor in this chapter and throughout the books of the prophets. In the verse quoted above, Second Isaiah is calling to those who are either stubborn of heart or, as the Septuagint reads, those who have lost heart. When we listen to the “eternal cry of God” we can never lose heart. We are incapable of falling into despair because we know God is close and God’s victory over evil will happen, with our help and our strength joining together with God’s despair, anxiety and evil will be dealt with and joy, clarity and homecoming will happen. I think of how often people give up when success/victory is near and we give up because we are not listening nor are we appreciating our strength, our history and God’s help. God is promising our victory, God is promising our triumph over negativity, depression, anxiety and idolatry. We can defeat all of these-not eradicate them- and be able to no longer have these and other deceptions of self and by another(s) defeat us.
"God, I offer myself to Thee‐‐to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!” This is the 3rd step prayer of AA and for people in recovery, it is essential that we say this and begin to live this path in order to be able to Listen to “God’s eternal cry” and to remember that God is One and without Divine help, we are left to our own devices and they have failed us time after time. This prayer for those of us in recovery, reminds us to stop and hear, stop and act and remember that what we do is in the Name of God and shows God’s power, love, and God’s carrying us and rescuing us and placing us in our proper place in this world. In recovery, listening, hearing and acting all emanate from our soul, our inner lives as we change our locus of control from intellect to spirit; from self-centered to God-centered; from self-seeking to seeking to help another(s).
My own listening is so much better now, even though my doctor says I have had some hearing loss and need hearing aids:)! Yet, my soul hears better, my spirit is more in control of me than my ego and my heart aches with sadness instead of madness much more now. All of this is the result of hearing God, listening to God and following God’s path, not my self-centered one. Being of Service, making the interests of another(s) my concern are cornerstones of my living and being in recovery. My sense of what is just and merciful, righteous and kind, truthful and compassionate all come from listening to “God’s eternal cry” and remembering I am acting in the Name of God. Which, of course, makes my errors, my inappropriate outbursts all the more painful to and for me. Yet, not all outbursts are inappropriate, my timing may be off, and as the prophets show us, outbursts in the Name of God to help another(s) live the 3rd step prayer above are holy actions. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark