Searching For Sanctuary.

{completely unnecessary} Disclaimer: I AM NOT A BIBLE SCHOLAR. 
But I dug a little deeper into Isaiah this morning anyway. 

Because things are so hard right now, y'all. 

The world is hard. The news is hard. Social media is hard. Life- it feels like- during these past few days, has been hard. 

And I've found that it's during hard times when my faith grows because it's then that I search for my sanctuary the most. Don't we all? 

I was reading through Isaiah earlier (Nerd alert, I KNOW.) and I came across a few verses that felt like a balm to my hurting soul. They're in Chapter 8, when Isaiah is telling all the people about all the hard things that were going to happen to them.

And interestingly enough, Isaiah felt so strongly that he wrote this warning on a scroll and display it to be read publicly and THEN ON TOP OF THAT, he named his second son with the same warning. (I don't have a scroll in my hand, don't worry. And I'm not renaming the kids. Whew.) But even still, it meant that he had a message and he felt really strongly about delivering it. 

He's talking about the future fall of Damascus and Samaria, two kingdoms that were uniting to try and overthrow Judah, the smaller southern kingdom of divided nation of Israel. It was a scary and hard time. Things were a straight up mess. Kings were corrupt and were leading their people in corrupt lives. Idol worship was the norm and child sacrifice was an accepted part of it. Life.was.hard. They'd turned their backs on God and the nation as a whole was suffering because of those choices. And something about that feels sorta similar to me.

But anyway, then verses 11, 12, 13, and 14 happen. 

"For the LORD spoke to me with a mighty power and instructed me not to walk in the way of this people saying, "You are not to say, 'It is a conspiracy!' in regard to all that this people call a conspiracy, and you are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it. It is the LORD of hosts whom you should regard as holy. And He shall be your fear, and He shall be your dread. Then He shall become a sanctuary..." -Isaiah 8:11-14a

And that's what got me, y'all- the part about where Isaiah was called to put his fear and reverence. His respect and awe were called to be focused on God and not on the wicked nation surrounding him. That struck a chord because there are just so many scary things that are attracting my attention lately. Everywhere I look there seem to be new social and political and racial situations that fill me with fear. It's hard. But Isaiah knew hard times, too. And he knew how to find sanctuary. 

And so for me, as I walk through hard times here when hard things happen and hard situations are surrounding me, I'm able to take courage like Isaiah and focus my fear where it belongs and find a sanctuary where he found it. With God.