When You’ve Lost Everything

For the LORD will comfort Zion;

he will comfort all her waste places,

and will make her wilderness like Eden,

her desert like the garden of the LORD;

joy and gladness will be found in her,

thanksgiving and the voice of song.

(from Isaiah 51:1-6)

Maui's images are apocalyptic. 

The disastrous wildfire sweeping across the village destroying buildings as it burned.

The scenes of people fleeing into the sea for safety as the fire burned furiously with smoke choking them as they sat in the water.

The harrowing scenes of devastation left by the wildfire leaving survivors with questions about housing and recovery.

The "places of waste" with burned houses, historic buildings, and motor vehicles.

The widely admired community banyan tree's canopy is scorched, its leaves dead, and its burnt bark and limbs give it an ashen appearance.

The recovery and rebuilding are estimated to take years.

When you've lost everything, what is the source of stamina to rebuild and recover from such wreckage and desolation?

The Israelites were a broken and defeated people taken in chains to Babylon, losing their temple, their homes, their way of life. 

Displaced and disoriented, God’s people know only loss and death with the world they knew a fading memory limiting their vision to decades of captivity ahead. 

They describe their situation with words of scarcity such as: “wilderness,” “desert,” “waste places”. 

When you’ve lost everything, it’s easy to safeguard what little is left, gripping tightly to protection, suspicious of others’ motives and needs. 

These verses from Isaiah celebrate what God will accomplish among the exiled people offering comfort, hope, and a vision of abundance. 

For the LORD will comfort Zion; 

he will comfort all her waste places, 

and will make her wilderness like Eden, 

her desert like the garden of the LORD; 

joy and gladness will be found in her, 

thanksgiving and the voice of song.

As the LORD did for Zion, so will the LORD do for Maui by bringing comfort, hope and abundance.

As the LORD did for Zion and Maui, so God's work continues.

To see the work of God's hands, God’s dream—Eden, garden, deliverance, abundance,

Isaiah says , "lift up your eyes...my deliverance will never be ended."

When you've lost everything, lift your eyes to see God's everlasting salvation and deliverance.