Isaiah 49:13-16

13 Shout for joy, O heavens;
rejoice, O earth;
burst into song, O mountains!
For the LORD comforts his people
and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.
14 But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me,
the Lord has forgotten me."
15 "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
16 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are ever before me.

This message was to Israel from God through the prophet Isaiah. God was telling them that a time was coming in which Israel would know great comfort and joy. The response from Israel was not that of hope but of skeptism. They were in the midst of hard times and felt that God had deserted them, and this glimmer of hope seemed to harden them even more than they already were. They found it hard to believe that the God who was letting them experience such trials could have a such a wonderful plan for their future.

It seems to me that God must have understood the way they were feeling, so He gives them a metaphor to help them understand His love for them. It is notable, and I think effective that the metaphor he uses is a mother's love for her child. They must have known as we also know the length that a mother will go for her child. They would have known as we do that a mother will fight anyone or anything at anytime to protect her child from harm. And she will not hesitate to sacrifice anything or everything including her own life to keep her child safe. We hear of amazing stories all the time that prove this throughout history.

There are rare exceptions of course and God, knowing Israel's skepticism addresses that too. He says in effect, there are bad mothers who do terrible things. My love for you is not like that but rather like the mothers who act in the natural sense, the ones who go into burning buildings, lift automobiles after car wrecks, who face down armed men, the ones who give up their lives in the figurative sense as well, who will leave behind all personal ambition to see that their child gets the best of what life has to offer. God is saying that is what His love is like.

It works doesn't it? I imagine there have been times when most of us would trust our mother's love above anything else in the world. If Israel could understand that God's love is like that, they could also believe His magnificent promises of that which is to come, and so can we.