Pain: The Loudest Siren

Consequences are meant to teach us. They are meant to wake us up and get our attention! Don't avoid the pain, discover the lesson!

“You’re the meanest daddy in the world!” With that declaration, my daughter informed me that I was both unfair and unreasonable to expect her to clean up the mess she had made with the Play-Doh.

By the way, I’m convinced Play-Doh was invented by demons for the tormenting and temptation of parents!

From my daughter’s immature perspective, she saw no problem with her freedom to leave the living room a mess and her enjoyment of the Play-Doh. She was perfectly content to avoid any consequence or responsibility for her actions. The fact that I, as her father, had insisted she accept responsibility and then clean up her mess meant I was mean, cruel, and horrible.

But that’s how we sometimes feel about our relationship with God.

Haven’t we sometimes interpreted the sad consequences of our actions as, “God is angry with me” and “He’s punishing me?

The reality is much more akin to my chickens coming home to roost!

I have to accept and deal with the natural consequences of my actions.

Look at our passage today in Isaiah 13:2-13:

On a bare hill raise a signal, cry aloud to them; wave the hand for them to enter the gates of the nobles. I myself have commanded my consecrated ones, have summoned my mighty men to execute my anger, my proudly exulting ones.

Hark, a tumult on the mountains as of a great multitude! Hark, an uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathering together! The LORD of hosts is mustering a host for battle. They come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, the LORD and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole earth.

Wail, for the day of the LORD is near; as destruction from the Almighty it will come! Therefore all hands will be feeble, and every man’s heart will melt, and they will be dismayed. Pangs and agony will seize them; they will be in anguish like a woman in travail. They will look aghast at one another; their faces will be aflame.

Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the earth a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising and the moon will not shed its light. I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant, and lay low the haughtiness of the ruthless. I will make men more rare than fine gold, and mankind than the gold of Ophir. Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of the LORD of hosts in the day of his fierce anger.

The prophet warns Israel in no uncertain terms that God isn’t going to ignore their spiritual apathy, their prideful actions and attitudes, and their mistreatment of each other forever.

He tells them that a reckoning is coming, and if you ignore this warning, you do so at your own peril!

Some have concluded that this reveals the God of the First Testament and the Father revealed by our Lord Jesus were two different deities.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

Let’s face it: gripped by self-centered pride makes a man both stubborn and hard of hearing! Sometimes, a person’s life has become so cluttered with their selfishness that they must have a loud siren in the ear to wake them up.

For those self-centered people, any suggestion that they should start choosing differently threatens their “freedom.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

“You can’t tell me what to do!” And “You’re not my boss.” And “I was born this way. You have no right to tell me I’m wrong!” Hey, the truth is I’ve said these words myself. We’ve all been teenagers, after all!

God loved the nation of Israel so much that He used His loudest siren to warn them that the consequences of their choices would be harsh. They would reap what they had sown, and in their selfishness, they would attribute all those consequences to God's anger in a futile attempt to avoid accepting responsibility themselves.

If the fear of God’s anger would wake them, so be it! Isaiah told them that the great and terrible day of the Lord would not be enjoyable unless they made an internal change.

As we pass through the wisdom and spiritual reorientation of Great Lent, let’s not forget that we are all called to grow up in our spiritual lives.

We are called to mature past the stubbornness of attempts at doing anything we want and avoiding the consequences of our choices.

We are called to mature past those childish days of “You’re the meanest daddy in the world” temper tantrums when our lives and the consequences of our choices confront us.

This is the season when we learn to repent, look to our sins, and refrain from judging others. We accept the wise and loving direction of a God Who is far from angry with us but loves us too much to pat us on the head as a doting grandfather in light of our foolish choices. He calls us to maturity because only a spiritually mature person can hope to be in real and deep communion with God.

Today, don’t miss these precious days of repentance, grumbling about the pain of consequences when that very pain is inviting you to spiritual maturity. We have to begin seeing the pain of consequences as a gift! Otherwise, I will never be mature enough to be a Normal Orthodox Christian!

P.S. When I ponder in my wretchedness on the many terrible things that I have done, I tremble for that fearful day, the Day of Judgment. But trusting in the mercy of Your compassion, like David I cry to You, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy.” Idiomela from the Triodion, pl.2

Fr. Barnabas Powell is the parish priest at Sts. Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene Greek Orthodox Church in Cumming, GA. He is also the founder of Faith Encouraged Ministries and produces the Faith Encouraged Daily Devotional on Substack. Watch the Faith Encouraged YouTube Channel here - https://www.youtube.com/@FaithEncouragedTV