Isaiah 11: 1- 3

1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD -
3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;

The last 10 chapters of Isaiah have been a hard read, the harshness with which God dealt with Israel and Judah can give even a well seasoned believer a fresh fear of God. Finally in Chapter 11 a positive prophecy and a promise. After all the Lord had allowed the Assyrians to do to them, they were a mere “stump” cut down and seemingly lifeless. But The LORD wanted them to know that even though the Assyrians and others had come to bring judgment, God would still use them and bring forth life from them. And what a life that would come. This scripture foretells of the life of Christ that would come from the “Line of David”, the “House of David”, and “the stump of Jesse”.

I still sit in amazement that God would send forth his Son through a human like David, the life of David is far from perfect, his life story could make for a bestselling romance novel, or even a “thriller”. And to make it even more amazing, this life of David comes out of a “stump” of a people, who had been cut down. If you look at David for his humanness, you can’t imagine that he’s much better than the stump. But there’s a difference. David continually desires to follow after God. His heart is torn after he sins, and he pursues a “right relationship”. So out of that heart comes a new life, the promised One. The One whom God would send forth filled with His spirit. Christ, God in the form of a man, would bear His wisdom, His understanding, His counsel, His power, the very power that would later raise Him from the dead. This miracle of God in the flesh would come from a seemingly abandoned “stump”. There is nothing like it. Life from what once was dead. A miracle that can only come from the very hand of God.

God longs to do such miracles in our lives too. To bring life, new life where there once was death. Without the breath of God breathing new life into our spirits we will be nothing more than a cut off stump, abandoned, covered over with weedy growth. And who knows what may come from the “stump of Susan” now that His life has been breathed into my spirit. Or from the “stump of YOU”.