Heap

For you have made the city a heap, the fortified city a ruin . . .  

 - From Isaiah 25

The entire chapter, Isaiah 25, is a passage full of praise to God . . . for His goodness. God's enemies will be defeated. We will cry no more. Death will be vanquished. 

But it leads off with this scene from an American city, in 2020:

"You have made the city a heap."

Sodom and Gomorrah were thriving cities . . . but when they were overcome with selfish pursuits only, and the brutalizing of each other, God had to end it. He took out two entire cities. Where are they now? God wipes out cities. 

Is it possible, that God is not much into the urban lifestyle? 

When Christ needed time with His Father, He always went off, to be alone. He got away from the crowds. In fact, the very idea of "crowds" in the Bible, is usually not in a good context. 

I remember a conversation with a fifth grader. His family had just moved to the US, from Japan, within the past year. The very next summer, my daughter was planning to go to Japan for an internship. So I asked the fifth grader if he had some advice for my daughter. He said "Get used to living with millions of people piled on top of each other."

This same daughter had a best friend, from Korea. My daughter said that, as she drove her friend out to my sister's for Easter dinner, one year, her friend marveled at the spread of homes . . . each home so far apart, with so much land in between. Her friend had heard about this, about America, but was still amazed when she saw it the first time. 

I used to drive through Michigan's back roads with a friend that had spent her entire life in Detroit. As we drove down farm roads, my friend talked about how everything was so "stretched out". 

We seek a home with lots of land. But some people seek the city, to get away. But people that are restless, running away from something (usually something "provincial"), that are a little angry about this or that . . . when enough of them gather in a city, how does it surprise us when crowds gather and begin acting randomly?

Cities seem permanent. They seem safe. They seem like a place where you are protected from danger, by waves of people surrounding you. 

But none of this is true. God told Abraham to look in every direction. Everything that he can see, will be his.

Land is a big deal. God's Kingdom is a place of sprawling beauty. 

And we should not be surprised when cities collapse. Sometimes . . . this is part of something bigger, something very good.