Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God. 1 Corinthians 8:1-3.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13.

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Isaiah 26:3 NKJV.

I loved that this morning in our Zoom Friday Retreat we did a safe place prayer. We were led to be still and ask Jesus to be with us. We shared what we experienced. But I realized afterward that it began last night. When I pray at night sometimes the worries given in prayer reach such a crescendo that I find it hard to sleep. My prayers are infused with worries because the problems are so vast I can’t see how they can be no more. But last night I gave each worry, named each worry, and gave each worry to God…and slept. And this morning in safe place prayer, I briefly saw a scene of a city laid waste, just like we see on the news today. All was gray and quiet, buildings bombed out. And then a songbird outside began singing so richly and beautifully. Listen. Out of the ashes is life because Creator God – Father…Son…Spirit, is Life and He is with us always. He will not leave us or abandon us. Everything so destructive in our broken world will lie broken – and Life with our God will be.

And how our chapter reminded me of all of this…Isaiah 29 – Woe to you, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David settled! Add year to year and let your cycle of festivals go on. Yet I will besiege Ariel; she will mourn and lament, she will be to me like an altar hearth. I will encamp against you on all sides; I will encircle you with towers and set up My siege works against you. Brought low, you will speak from the ground; your speech will mumble out of the dust. Your voice will come ghostlike from the earth; out of the dust your speech will whisper. v. 1-4…But your many enemies will become like fine dust, the ruthless hordes like blown chaff. Suddenly, in an instant, the Lord Almighty will come with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with windstorm and tempest and flames of a devouring fire. v. 5-6. And yet, for all of the wars and devastation throughout all the ages of men, For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say, “Read this, please,” they will answer, “I can’t; it is sealed.” Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, “Read this, please,” they will answer, “I don’t know how to read.” The Lord says: “These people come near to Me with their mouth and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is based on merely human rules they have been taught. Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.” Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think, “Who sees us? Who will know?”…You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to the One who formed it, “You did not make me”? Can the pot say to the potter, “You know nothing”? v. 11-16. Without God how can we see? But with Him? Therefore this is what the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, says to the descendants of Jacob: “No longer will Jacob be ashamed; no longer will their faces grow pale. When they see among them their children, the work of My hands, they will keep My name holy; they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob, and will stand in awe of the God of Israel. Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding; those who complain will accept instruction.” v. 22-24.

Not by human knowledge or wisdom…disintegrated into dust…but by the Love of God, the Holy One who loves, will we be saved. He is with you. Even now. When you go to Him in quiet stillness and ask Him to be with you, the peace you find there with Him will be your strength. Because you will be with God – who was and is and is to come. You will be Home.