Unfailing love
by Jim Strelan
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My unfailing love for you will not be shaken (Isaiah 54:10b).
Read Isaiah 54:10–17
How much can you love someone? We sometimes hear parents say to their children, ‘I love you to the moon and back.’ I’ve always thought that an astronaut who has travelled to the moon could say that to their child with more meaning than anyone else. In other words, ‘The love I have for you is immeasurable.’
When God says he loves his people, it is irrefutable. It is not dependent on anything. We know the history of the people of Israel in biblical times: turning away, coming back, turning away, coming back. But God loves with an unfailing love.
Earlier, in Isaiah 49, we have these words: ‘Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?’ Hard as it is to imagine, that is possible. Children have been abandoned by their mothers. But God says, ‘Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands’ (Isaiah 49:15,16). Etched in. Irremovable. Permanent. Unfailing.
Not only does God promise to love his people unfailingly, but he also shows this by showering his people with gifts, signs of his love. A rebuilt city with stones of turquoise, foundations with sapphires, battlements of rubies and gates of sparkling jewels (verses 11 and 12).
This almost reminds me of the Prodigal Son story in Luke 15, where the returning son, who comes back with his tail between his legs, ashamed of how completely he had rejected all his father had to offer, is received by that father with the best robe and a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. That’s the way God loves.
Sometimes events in your life might leave you feeling as though the mountains have shaken and the hills have subsided. Sometimes you might feel alone, and the weight of what burdens you is yours alone to carry. Sometimes you might feel that you give and give and get very little back. Hear God’s promise to his people – that same God makes that promise to you. His love for you is unfailing. Whatever has happened, whatever your situation. Always. You can count on it.
What can I say, my God, when I contemplate your kind of loving? Nothing but thank you. I am overwhelmed and forever grateful. Thank you. Amen.
Jim is a retired pastor living with his wife Ruth in Deception Bay, Queensland. He spends his retirement making space to add more Lions’ premiership posters to the six (3+3) he already has on his garage wall.
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