A MISSED OPPORTUNITY

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Whenever information is delivered using the past tenses, it often denotes a missed opportunity, a chance gone by to alter the outcome of events. In the writings of Isaiah read today, God addresses Israel using tenses of the past “If only you had paid attention to my commands…'(48:17a)

There had to be have been a result which was not expected because this was God letting them know how far from his blueprint for living they had strayed because of their choice not to follow – their disobedience. He relays what they missed out as follows:

"your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea. Your descendants would have been like the sand, your children like its numberless grains; their name would never be blotted out nor destroyed from before me.”( 17b-19)

Looking at this, we might think we’ll what’s the point when all is already lost? God is always ever ready and willing to restore us when we return. What therefore sounds like a regretful monologue is actually an invitation into obedience. For when that is attained, the promises contained in the same text are activated for fulfilment in the present tense.

#sly