Hephzibah

Do any of these words describe you: Hephzibah (my delight is in her), rejoiced over, Beulah (married), sought after, no longer deserted, watched over, provided for, or a splendor for others to see?

This morning I was amazed to read Isaiah 62, with its wonderful descriptions of how God will rejoice over His people. The descriptions are not that of quiet affection. They are boastful and bold descriptions of His heart toward us. What a wild realization, that our God delights and rejoices over us as a groom does his new bride! We will be a part of the new Zion in Heaven. We will be among the Holy People and the Redeemed of the Lord (v. 12). If God delights in the whole lot of His children so greatly, how much more does each and every one of His children bring Him delight.

Is this hard for you to grasp? It is for me. Some of us, including myself, may cling to a lie or be wrestling through the process of replacing a lie with truth. In the past, I accepted the lie that said, "Because the knowledge of a good marriage wasn't given to me, I have the right to harbor unforgiveness or bitterness toward those who influenced the degradation of marriage in my soul." Then, when I looked to God, I transposed those same unmet expectations onto God. In my deceived mind, I accepted that God did not have a good gift to give me, because He was no better than those sinners that influenced me negatively.

Whoa! Hold on a minute. Through one unreconciled experience in my life, God moved from being GOD to being no better than a sinner. Where does truth come from...my experience or from God himself? In the old way of thinking that I just described, truth came from me and was limited to a sinful, shameful reality. By believing a lie, I limited the knowledge of God in my heart and mind. My experience wasn't good, therefore (I assumed wrongly) God wasn't good. After my understanding of God was successfully diminished by Satan's lies, then everything about my view of life developed from that same small, wrongful picture of God. When I would go to weddings or read about God loving me as a husband does His wife, that sure wasn't a promising thought.

Praise God that He heals us through the processes of time, counsel, and truth! Today, I can wrestle with the idea of being called Hephzibah, or for God saying of me, "My delight is in her." I am learning to trust God for things I have not seen, including being loved like Isaiah 62 describes. It is a process. I'm still working towards it, but I can trust that God's truth is better than my own judgment. When trials come, God remains unchanged. I pray that anyone reading this would grow in their knowledge of who He is and how much He loves them.

What is the result of believing how greatly you are loved, delighted in, and delighting in whom you are married to? Isaiah 62:10 says, "Raise a banner for the nations!" As ladies, we know what that means. When we put our trust and love into a man, every girl within a 50 mile radius knows about it. We identify ourselves with that person through social status and obvious affection. So, is that how we react to God's great love for us? Are the nations, or even our neighbors, aware of how great His love is? If you are soundly believing in God's delighting in and rejoicing over you, then consider the raising of the banner for the nations your challenge.

© 2006 by Kendra Hinkle.