Isaiah wrote extensively about failed worship practices among the people of Israel. He pointed out the ludicrous nature of sawing a log in two, using half to bake bread and fashioning the other half into an idol.

He wrote of one who lived this way: Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”

These deluded ones worshipped a variety of gods represented by the forms they crafted. Isaiah continually reminded them that their idols and the ideas behind them were worthless—simply nothing at all.

Isaiah announced again and again that a god you can hold in your hand ain’t no god at all.

The God of the Bible cannot be held. God told Isaiah, This is what the Lord says—your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb. I am the Lord, the Maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth by myself.

Often I prefer a god I can carry in my pocket, a talisman or lucky rabbit’s foot to help me through tough situations, one I can then tuck away until needed again. But that god only exists in my imagination. I need to wise up and realize this thing in my hand is a lie.

Turn to the Lord as discovered in the Scriptures. Way scarier and wilder and out of our grasp. But he’s the only God available, the only Redeemer with our best interests on his heart.

Isaiah 44 in reading the Bible in 2023

Photo by Iza Gawrych