grace in the wilderness

If you've ever tried to read through Isaiah or Jeremiah, I am impressed by your efforts. If you've ever actually completed the task, you must be way more diligent and smarter than me. I've been trying to read Jeremiah since like March. It's hard to get. And it's sort of depressing, because for being "god's people", Israel isn't very faithful, and God's a pretty just God.

It's a lengthy passage, but read chapters 30 and 31 of Jeremiah. Seriously. The best story ever told. From the beginning of the book through chapter 30, Jeremiah keeps telling Judah and Israel about what God thinks of sin. Over and over again (a Nelly reference, what?). He gives little hints of God's grace but mostly talks about God's wrath. And in ch. 30, Jeremiah shoots straight with the israelites. He quotes God saying things like "your hurt is incurable, there's no healing for you" and "your sins are flagrant and your guilt is great".

Then, one of the clearest pictures of redemption in all scripture that I've read: chapter 31. "With weeping they shall come, and with pleas of mercy I will lead them back, I will make them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble... For the Lord has ransomed Jacob and has rescued him from hands too strong for him" (31:9 & 11). Verse 2 says they found grace in the wilderness. They were in the wilderness for a while. But even in a desolate place, they experienced the grace of God.
How's this possible? It doesn't even make sense. God's a god who redeems. He restores. And gosh dang, even in the midst of our deep, dark, death-deserving betrayal, we get his grace. We get the cross and a clean slate. It's what I'll spend the rest of my life trying to understand.

On a less serious but equally blog-worthy note, we've seen sun in suva everyday for like a week straight. If that's not evidence of God's goodness and a straight up miraculous act of the sovereign God, I don't know what is. I might come home with a tan after all!