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by Christy Voelkel (Author)
We live in a broken world-a world full of broken people, broken families, broken communities. We are bombarded with hateful, manipulative social messaging and twisted social values. We are oppressed by abuse and bullying, violence, hate, and injustice. In the backwash of all that, we grapple with fear, despair, self-pity, shame, destructive anger, and withdrawal into silence-all of the reactions that come with feeling powerless to escape our situation. We are left with the challenge of where to find comfort and how to break free of our bondage.
Israel was no different in the days of Isaiah. She was already suffering from brokenness as a nation because of her broken relationship with God, and it would take even more suffering under the oppressive hands of Babylonia before she would seek God's solution.
God's Highway Project is an expositional study of the book of Isaiah, focusing on Isaiah 40-66. In these chapters, God models the process for comforting oppressed and struggling people through His work with Israel, beginning in the days of her exile in Babylonia. How God deals with her provides us with many vital insights and strategies for comforting broken people even in our own cultural context today. The process that He uses to move Israel from a place of brokenness and exile to healing and restoration in a kingdom is described as building a highway. It follows four basic highway-building steps needed for restoration: lifting up those in the valleys, tearing down exalted attitudes and coping defenses, straightening skewed values and goals, and smoothing out rough places by removing stumbling stones that prevent progress toward healing. A few examples of stumbling stones include fear, despair, anger, and shame, but there are more. Israel is our case study, and she is a worst-case scenario, which in itself is a comfort. If God can redeem and restore Israel, there is hope for us as well!
