Consult The Original Manufacturer

“Ye made also a ditch between the two walls for the water of the old pool: but ye have not looked unto the maker thereof, neither had respect unto him that fashioned it long ago.” (Isa 22:11 AV)

 The LORD is speaking at a time of Jerusalem’s judgment.  Or, what will be their judgment.  He is speaking of them breaking down homes and using the stones as a means to build walls to protect the city.  The ditches would be a mote that is between the walls.  God is making an obvious statement.  He is making the point that instead of getting right with God, they are taking extreme measures of protecting their city.  They are using the things God created and are ignoring Him along the way.  Instead of tearing down homes, fortifying the walls, and digging motes, they should be seeking God’s face.  Instead of taking matters into their own hands and guarding against the very God who is sending this chastisement, they should be repenting of their sin and seeking God’s grace.  However, we are going to apply this same principle in a slightly different way.

One of my most vivid memories of working in a factory was working with an entirely new process.  The product we were attempting to manufacture was something other companies were doing, but we had never tried before.  This meant a learning curve.  We couldn’t go to our competitors for guidance, so we were pretty much on our own.  One of the pieces of equipment required in this process was a multimillion-dollar extruder.  It was a one-of-a-kind machine.  The screw inside had interchangeable parts.  This meant we could mix the material in different ways while containing it to one machine.  One of the difficulties we had was mixing material that did not naturally mix.  And, doing so in a way that the final product was so well mixed, it would be impossible to discern the different components.  This lead to a lot of trial and error.  One of the accessories to this extruder was a hopper.  In this hopper, three different materials were dumped.  An auger assured a consistent mix.  A fourth component, which was causing all the problems, was added a little later to the process.  One thing led to another and we were failing miserably.  The engineers did one test after another.  Running the process manually seemed to work a bit better.  To make a long story short, our engineers worked on this process for more than six weeks before they finally called Siemens.  This company specializes in control systems.  Their tech was on sight for over a week several times during the process.  The sad thing is, our engineers waited until they had exhausted everything they could think of before they called for help.

This is how we are.  Life is full of trouble and trials.  We tend to want to handle it all on our own.  We take matters into our hands and try to solve it in our own wisdom and strength.  The problem is, in doing so, we ignore the One who has all the wisdom and power to see us through our difficulty.  We are so stubborn and self-sufficient, we believe our lives our in our hands and do not realize we are fragile and in need of the One who can grant us all relief.  Whether it is physical trials, financial trials, trials of relationships, or trials of faith, we tend to formulate a plan that we believe will work best.  We do not stop and think there is a sovereign God who knew from the beginning what we would go through.  He knows what He is trying to accomplish.  He knows the road we must take as we traverse the valley of the shadow of death.  Our Good Shepard will lead us along and provide what we need.  He will guard us and keep us.  All we need to learn to do is allow God to be God and stop trying to do His job.