In August 2020 my husband and I took a week-long RV trip to celebrate my birthday and our wedding anniversary. Along with many other families, we discovered during COVID that RV travel offered a good opportunity to meet COVID-19 social distancing requirements while introducing a variety of scenery and activity into our pandemic-restricted lives. Trying to get a spot in a state or private campground during those early “lockdown” days was tricky: They were surprisingly scarce!
Anyway, we left Georgia that August day headed for a lovely lakeside campground in North Carolina where we planned to meet up with other RV-ing church friends who were serving as campground hosts.
For some reason, the road time seemed long: Hauling our fifth wheel trailer up several North Georgia and North Carolina mountains might have contributed to that feeling. We were grateful to arrive safely at our campsite, and a nap before dinner sounded like a good idea. I set my phone alarm for 5:30 p.m., but I woke up naturally, and forgot to turn off the alarm.
You guessed it: At 5:30 the next morning we were startled awake when my alarm – which in my exhaustion I had set erroneously – sounded off loud and clear. That alarm was going to accomplish its purpose, no matter what!
How like God’s timeless, magnificent, living and written Word! In Isaiah 55:11 God Himself tells us “So is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (NIV).
I’ve always loved Karl Barth’s famous description of “the Word.” He noted that Jesus is the primary, living Word of God. He went on to say that the Bible is the secondary, written Word of God, which always points to the primary Word, Jesus.
For Christian disciples who love and share God’s Living Word, Jesus, and God’s written Word, the Bible, what a comfort it is to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God’s Word is always effective! When you and I send out His Word – whether through a lived example, a casual conversation with an adult, a teen or a child, a sermon, a spoken or written devotional, a letter, an email or a post on social media – we are assured by our Triune God that it will accomplish exactly what God intends it to accomplish.
In light of the mission of this website – to encourage believers to pass on our faith in God through Christ to the generations that follow us – the truth of this Scripture offers two “corollaries” I have experienced again and again:
- As we disciple our children and grandchildren, whether they are biological, adopted, or “spiritual” sons and daughters, we may or may not ever know how God accomplishes His plan in their lives through the Word we have shared. Hearing an offspring say “Wow! That was just what I needed to hear” is a rare occurrence, and one to be highly treasured. It is far more likely that God will bring our words, written, spoken, or lived, to their remembrance in HIS perfect timing – maybe weeks, months, years, or decades down the road! But Isaiah 55:11 tells us He will. He promises. (See also John 14:26 on the Holy Spirit’s role in this marvelous promise.)
- Incidentally and perhaps disconcertingly, God may wish to accomplish different things with His Word than we intend! I was often amazed, as I greeted parishioners after preaching on a Sunday morning, to hear them tell me just how the sermon affected them. More often than not, their “take-away” was not exactly what I had imagined it would be – but they felt blessed, or informed, or encouraged, or convicted. In my humanity, I might have wished for my listeners to hear “X,” but God’s intricate knowledge of each of His children caused His Holy Spirit to tailor my presentation of His Word to each of their needs – and frequently that need was one I had no idea even existed. God did!
So don’t fret if no one compliments your next sermon, comments on your blog, “likes” your Facebook post, or even responds to your (obviously brilliant!) parenting/grandparenting gems of spiritual nurture. The Word of God will always accomplish what God intends for it to accomplish. It has to. God promised.
