When you are set free, you will celebrate and travel home in peace. Mountains and hills will sing as you pass by, and trees will clap - Isaiah 55:12 (CEV)
There are more than a few scriptures passages that tell of God's great joy when one of His children turns away from a life of sin and comes back to life with God. Many of the stories Jesus told revolve around the theme of the lost being found (for example, the stories of the lost son and the lost coin in Luke 15). But here in Isaiah, we find one of the Bible's most vivid images of God's delight in welcoming back his people.
When we turn away from God, we often do so because we don't feel His presence in our life, or because we are plagued with doubts about His power to act on our behalf. When we finally feel ready to come back to God, we wonder if he'll take us in. We wonder what our punishment will be for rejecting God. But this passage reminds us that God is not only willing to take us back, He is waiting for us to return to Him. And when we do, all of creation celebrates our return. What a beautiful picture of God's love for us. We find mercy where we expected punishment, joy where we expected anger, and freedom where we expected judgment. When we return to God, He is more than ready to make us whole.
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