When we feel estranged from the Lord, 2 Nephi 7:1-3

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There are some days or times in our life, when we may wonder if the Lord still cares, whether He is still working in our lives.  There are some really nice verses of Isaiah quoted in 2 Nephi that address these feelings:

1 Yea, for thus saith the Lord:

Have I put thee away,

or have I cast thee off forever?

For thus saith the Lord:

Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement?

To whom have I put thee away,

or to which of my creditors have I sold you?

Yea, to whom have I sold you?

Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves,

and for your transgressions is your mother put away.

2 Wherefore, when I came, there was no man;

when I called, yea, there was none to answer.

O house of Israel, is my hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem,

or have I no power to deliver?

Behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea,

I make their rivers a wilderness

and their fish to stink because the waters are dried up,

and they die because of thirst.

3 I clothe the heavens with blackness,

and I make sackcloth their covering. (2 Nephi 7:1-3)

The Lord wants us to know that if we feel like the Lord has “divorced” us or sold us to our enemies, it is because we have divorced ourselves from Him because of our sins.  Our sins cause us to be estranged from God. (Simple concept, but worth repeating.)

“when I came, there was no man; when I called, yea, there was none to answer” – Here the Lord is speaking as a husband who went through His house looking for His family and found everyone had deserted the place.  It is as if He called His wife’s name and no one responded.  In short, Israel deserts the Lord; the Lord doesn’t desert Israel.  The Lord calls us and looks for us in the places where we should be, and we don’t answer because we’d rather be doing other things.

When we’ve deserted the Lord, there is a tendency to begin to doubt His power to help us.  Isaiah speaks from the Lord’s point of view to question us about this—“is my hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem, or have I no power to deliver?”

Then, the Lord reminds us of the miracles that attended His deliverance of Israel from bondage in Egypt to prove His power.  “[A]t my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make their rivers a wilderness and their fish to stink because the waters are dried up, and they die because of thirst.”  This is a reference to how the Lord parted the Red Sea so the Israelites could escape the pursuing Egyptians.  It is meant to remind us that the Lord makes a way for us to escape where there wasn’t one before, which is exactly what a powerful Redeemer does.  Also, when we think of how the water parted, acting contrary to gravity, we can see that the Lord has a way of exerting an influence that can cause things and people act differently, to act contrary to their “fallen” nature.  This is a subtle testimony to the transformation that can occur under the influence of the Spirit.  This is what helps us escape our fallen nature.

“I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.” – This is a reference to the plagues of Egypt of darkness for three days, which, combined with the other nine plagues, were instrumental in convincing Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt.  It is a reminder that the Lord has power to afflict our enemies and convince them to let us go or leave us alone or whatever.

The Lord will act on our behalf in His time to save us once we repent and are no longer estranged from Him.

These principles are a great reminder for me today.  I feel like I need them.