Isaiah 35:1 · NET Bible
Let the wilderness and desert be happy; let the arid rift valley rejoice and bloom like a lily!
A promise made to people who had been told their situation was permanent.
Verse 1 of 4 in the Desert Bloom thread.
What is happening here
Isaiah was a prophet in Jerusalem roughly 2,700 years ago, writing to a nation that was about to lose a war and be marched off to a foreign country. The chapters just before this one are brutal. They describe cities emptied and land going back to scrub.
Then chapter 35 turns without warning and starts talking to the desert itself. Not to the people. To the ground. It tells the driest, least promising terrain in the region to get ready to bloom.
The point is not that the desert was secretly fine. It was a desert. The point is that the person making the promise is not limited by what the ground currently looks like. Isaiah is not asking anyone to pretend their situation is better than it is; he is saying the situation is not the last word on the outcome.
If you are reading this in a stretch where nothing has moved for a long time, that distinction is the whole thing. You are not being asked to feel differently about the desert. You are being told what it is going to do.
A prayer you can say before you believe it
God, I am standing on dry ground and I cannot make it rain. Grow something here anyway. I will wait.
If this one landed, read these next
- Isaiah 43:19 “Look, I am about to do something new. Now it begins to happen! Do you not recognize it? Yes, I will make a road in the wilderness and paths in the wastelands.
- Psalm 63:1 A psalm of David, written when he was in the Judean wilderness. O God, you are my God. I long for you. My soul thirsts for you, my flesh yearns for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.
- John 7:37-38 On the last day of the feast, the greatest day, Jesus stood up and shouted out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. Just as the scripture says, ‘From within him will flow rivers of living water.’”
- Isaiah 40:31 But those who wait for the Lord’s help find renewed strength; they rise up as if they had eagles’ wings, they run without growing weary, they walk without getting tired.
OIL AND ASHES
Desert Bloom
Bergamot and green citrus · Jasmine and lavender · Sweet vanilla musk
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ISAIAH 35:1
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For a dry season
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Bergamot and green citrus, Jasmine and lavender, Sweet vanilla musk. This passage and the other three in its thread are printed in full on a card in the package, so you can read them with a dead phone, in the dark, without scanning anything.