OPINION —
Life can become so difficult at times that even the staunchest Christian may decide that he has been forgotten by God. A friend’s wife was killed by a vicious tornado. He gave up his faith until the next day when in walked a friend who had driven 300 miles to tell him he loved him. “When he walked in, I realized there had to be a loving God who motivated my friend to drive that long distance to hug me and tell me he loved me.” His faith was restored by his friend’s love.
But what if, in your hour of despair and hopelessness, no friend shows up to comfort you? Then you may, like many others, decide that God has forgotten you. Across the ages, thousands who were struggling with suffering, death and disaster have come to that conclusion.
When it seems that God doesn’t care about your suffering, it is laughable to hear someone quote the scripture that says “God has engraved you on the palms of his hands.” You might respond, “How can you expect me to believe that? When I was desperate for His help, God did not show up.”
It is wise to ask what was the context of a quotation from scripture. So we can turn to the 49th chapter of Isaiah to understand the setting in which the prophet wrote that God has engraved us on the palms of his hands. The quotation is within a passage of scripture in which Isaiah hears God speaking. Isaiah describes God’s words as “Thus says the Lord.” Meditate on what Isaiah hears the Lord saying. It is how God answers those who in despair believe God has forgotten them:
8-9 The Lord says, “Your request has come at a favorable time. I will keep you from harm and give you as a token and pledge to Israel, proof that I will reestablish the land of Israel and reassign it to its own people again. Through you I am saying to the prisoners of darkness, ‘Come out! I am giving you your freedom!’
They will be my sheep, grazing in green pastures and on the grassy hills. 10 They shall neither hunger nor thirst; the searing sun and scorching desert winds will not reach them anymore. For the Lord in his mercy will lead them beside the cool waters.
11 And I will make my mountains into level paths for them; the highways shall be raised above the valleys.
12 See, my people shall return from far away, from north and west and south.”
13 Sing for joy, O heavens; shout, O earth. Break forth with song, O mountains, for the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion upon them in their sorrow.
14 Yet they (Zion) say, “My Lord deserted us; he has forgotten us.”
15 “Never! Can a mother forget her little child and not have love for her own son?
Yet even if that should be, I will not forget you.
16 See, I have tattooed your name upon my palm, and ever before me is a picture of Jerusalem’s walls in ruins” (Isaiah 49:8-16, Living Bible).
God is speaking, through Isaiah, to the Israelites whom He had chosen to serve Him and to be His people. Though Zion is the name of a hill or mountain, it is sometimes used, as in verse 14, to refer to God’s people, the nation of Israel. So it is the people of Israel who had decided God had forsaken them. God says though it is unlikely a mother would forget her nursing child, He will not forget his people. And further evidence of his love is the fact that He has “engraved you on the palms of his hands.”
It was a common practice in those days for the master’s name to be tattooed on the servant’s hand. So Isaiah sees God reversing this and tattooing or engraving the servant’s name on the Master’s hand. And that is because God sees ever before him the plight of his people, described here as the walls of Jerusalem in ruins.
Faith in the love of God can lead us as individual Christians to affirm that God loves us so much that he had engraved our names on the palms of his hands.
He sees the misfortune we are facing. But the scripture does not say our names are engraved on God’s hands; it really says “you” are engraved on his hands. An amazing idea! You, all that you are, your whole being, not just your name, are graven in God’s hand. And not written with a pencil or chalk, but permanently graven in God’s hand. The deeper meaning is clear: God will not forget you because you are engraved in the palms of his hands.
This conviction, based on one verse given by the Lord to Isaiah, helps us understand how great is the compassion of God for his children. The Bible, of course, is full of symbolic ideas that reveal how much God loves us. In fact, the Bible itself is God’s thundering answer to those who cry, “God has forgotten me.”
To borrow a phrase from Isaiah, “Thus says the Lord: I love you and I will never forget you!”
Thanks be to God!
