Stretch Out Your Tent

Isaiah. Well, I find Isaiah to be challenging. I’m working my through it and will probably finish it tomorrow, but it has been … hard to understand. It is interesting that as I read it, I come across very familiar passages – the ones which are often cited as references to the coming of Christ. As a Christian, as I read them, they sound very much like foretellings of Christ.

The passage I want to highlight today, though, is not one of those. It kind of jumped out at me from Chapter 54:

Verses 1-3:
1 "Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband," says the LORD.
2 "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.
3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.

Verses 10-13:
10 Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed," says the LORD, who has compassion on you.
11 "O afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will build you with stones of turquoise, your foundations with sapphires.
12 I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious stones.
13 All your sons will be taught by the LORD, and great will be your children's peace.

In my NIV bible, this chapter is called the Future Glory of Zion. Future Glory sounds so hopeful. Remember, please, as we go along, that I am stating my thoughts. I’ve done no research on this chapter – these are only my impressions. In this chapter God is speaking to his chosen country as if it were a barren woman – never having children. He tells her, “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.”

It reminds me of a church. Do we ever demonstrate the kind of hope that God is commanding his people to have? As we make plans for the future of our churches, do we “stretch our tent curtains wide?” Or do we “hold back?”

I was emailing a person in our church last week about our nursery. I told him that I was hoping that eventually we would need twice the staff coverage that we have now to handle the babies that would be brought to the nursery for care. To be fair, I called this “my dream.” He responded that he hoped “my dream” would come true. I know that he means it; that he does hope that “my dream” would come true, and that we would have so many children in the nursery that we would need extra help. But does he believe it will happen? Does he believe it will happen so much that he would call it “his dream?” Do I act as though I believe it?

I think sometimes we walk a balancing act in a church – good stewardship versus “enlarging our tent” in hope. Often, I believe, we fall on the side of good stewardship, at the expense of “dreams.” We do this so often that it becomes a habit to not believe. We loose the hope that God will use us, his church, to do his work in the world. We forget to believe in the dream.

I like verses 10-13. Do we celebrate God’s unfailing love for us? Do we believe that he will enlarge our church (the community, not the building), make it beautiful and useful for his service? Or do we call it “dying” and throw it out with the garbage?

“All your sons [and daughters] will be taught by the LORD, and great will be your children's peace.”

Now that’s a dream I can get behind.