When You Need God to Strengthen You | Isaiah 40:18-31

Show Notes

Episode 813:
In this episode, we delve into Isaiah 40:18-31, a passage that holds a special place in our hearts. I share my personal connection to verse 31, which speaks about those who trust in the Lord finding new strength. We explore the imagery of eagles soaring effortlessly and how this reflects God's provision of strength in our lives. Jeff shares a powerful analogy about trusting God, likening it to a child jumping into their parent's arms, emphasizing that true trust requires action.

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You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Bible guys. Wow, you're feeling spunky today. Well, you know what, it's a brand new day, Jeff and a brand new Chris. Yeah, brand new Chris. Oh good? This son of you interesting? You know he makes mercies new every day. Yeah, who does the new Chris? No the Lord? Oh? Okay for Chris, okay, excellent. Yeah. So anyway, today we're in the middle of a series. Well, the whole series is the promises of God laid out in different contexts, and so today we're actually the whole week is we're covering verses on God's power. Yeahs our line. Yeah, it's really good. It's a good one. I've enjoyed it so far. I have very much. So I'm a big fan. You stole that from me, Yes, of course I did. I trademarked that, so you owe me money now. Imitation is the best form of flatter Jeff, are you no? Thank you? How do you imitate me in any way? You tried? You said the way of us balloons. I tried to tried to earlier this week. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I shot you down. It didn't work, I know, Yeah, terrible. Sorry about that. Hey, So Desiree has a segment and and this segment is very popular and it's called mail Bad. Oh do it ready? Mail Bad? There you go pretty good. So little harmony there, Jeff, That's what I was trying to do. And so it says this, Jeff, this is a question for you. Have you seen Veggietails Lord of the Beans? Yes, more question mark. Yes, my wife and I both grew up on vegetails, but neither of us had heard of this Lord of the Ring spin off, so we had to watch it. Let me just say, when Larry the Cucumber is your photo, the bagins photo, bagans it's going to be a good one. Yeah, for sure, it's awesome. And then not to play spoiler alert, but watching a talking asparagus wrestle with Destiny is pretty incredible. And then he and then he says, also, do you have any suggestions for good shows? Us content to teach our toddler about the Bible, and Jesus not sure if vegietail. Vegietails is still valid in twenty twenty five. This is from Zach B, which we forgot to say. Hi, Zac B. Yeah, I don't know, Zach, Hi Zach B. We're so glad that you're listening and that you sent in this question. That's great. I don't know if a talking cucumber and a talking tomato and talking asparagus isn't relevant in twenty twenty five, was it relevant in nineteen ninety five? Yeah? Well right, I mean three year old toddler's tastes elevated so much. Yeah, that an old Bob and Larry show isn't going to work. Well, maybe he's referring to the animation is so bad now the kids are pretty judgmental. Sure, sure, maybe maybe yeah, yeah, Although I don't know three year olds. I have to be honest. I saw an episode the other day. By the other day, I mean like four months ago, and I certainly enjoyed. It, watched it. Yeah, Yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't pass over to skip over it just because it's old. I'd use it again. But I think there are some other ones. Because you and I we saw this question right before. We don't always do a bunch of study, but I just wanted to make sure on a couple of things, because like my kids grew up watching the uh you know what was the one that came from Focus on the Family? Do you remember that one? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it's talking about but no, I don't know that. Yeah. So they watched a couple and then you had the Nest Entertainment. My kids had those two. Yep, yep. It started out as Family Entertainment, then went to Nest Entertainment. Yeah. And it was a former Disney ye cartoonist. He worked on the Black Cauldron. And uh and yeah they did a nice job. And though those are all VHS tapes, right, yep, yep. But so the the one that I've downloaded a while back and used with my grandson one time. A few times my daughter was using it is the same U version app that we always read commended to Christians to download on your phone or on your iPad or something, which, by the way, they're coming up on a billion downloads this month on that app. Right, it's the most downloaded Bible app in the world, is you Version, And they're coming up on a billion and this month, the month of October is the month of the Bible. So that's kind of a neat thing to be a part of that. And we're big fans of the Bible. Highly recommend it. It's a muth read so so best seller, best seller of all time. But that You Version company that it's actually a church ministry from Life Church. They have a kids app and it's I just pulled it up here just a second ago. It's the Bible Adventure by Life Kids in You Version, right, is what they call that, and so it's it's an app. It's Bible app for kids. So if you just search Bible app for kids, it'll pull it up. It'll be from Life Church from You Version. I think that's great. They say it's targeted for three to twelve year olds, and so you just kind of to filter through and find what's appropriate, age appropriate for your kids. And there's some videos in there, and I remember doing Joan and the Whale with my grandson and a couple others. And then the other one that we just spent some time looking at is Superbook Kids. That's also an app. You can get it online. Both of those are available just on their website, but if you go to the app, you can get the app. And super Book Kids has a whole bunch of short form cartoons and the premises. These kids are traveling with kind of a professor guy and a robot through time and they're popping into all these different. Which is so cool. It's a little robot back in Bible times. Yeah yeah, yeah, And they're popping into these Bible stories and watching the widow dropping in her two mites kind of moment, those kinds of things. It's really really neat. It's pretty captivating. I love those two and they're pretty good. There's others out there, but those would be two good starters. Okay, so I will give you a dollar if you can do the next line of this you ready, Yes, if you like to talk with tomatoes, if a squash can make you smile, if you like to waltz with potatoes up and down the produce. Yes, and we have a shell for you. That is great. There you go. I couldn't remember it. Yeah. I don't owe you a dollar because you missed day, all right, because I'm a cheap because he's cheap. Well, hey, that is a great question, Zach. Thanks for writing in, and hope very good can take those suggestions. And I still think that you should give vegetails a shot. I think so too, and add those other two. They're pretty good. And and I want to commend you man to pass your faith on to your children. Yep. It's one of those things Book of Deuteronomy. God says when you get up in the morning, when you lay down at night, when you walk along the way, when you sit down at the meals, constant, be downloading God's ways in God's truth to your children. Right it's a twenty four hour day thing. Be passing it on. And listen, here's what I know. You might feel like, oh, it's a little silly, or I don't want to drive it down their throat. There's somebody who's going to stay up until two or three o'clock this morning trying to figure out a way to sell all of the world's garbage to your kids. And they're going to do it day after day after day after day after day. They're going to do it just for money. They're going to pervert your kids. So be diligent, lean into it. And when you can find tools like what you're looking for right now, whether you're talking about the veggietails thing or the super book thing or whatever, use them. Use them. And get your kids loving them. I think it's important. That's great, so good job. Wow, way to go down. I'll tell you what that was A. That was a I love. I love being reminded of vegetails. It's just such a great, great thing. You know what else I love? What do you love Isaiah? Chapter foury Oh, me too, I really do. Yeah, yeah, I love this. I love this passage that we're about to read Versus eighteen through the end of passage. And it's actually I have a story behind first number thirty Oh good, Yeah, yeah I do. I have thirty one, so excellent, thirty one forty thirty one? Oh yeah, yeah, well I guess. I guess it's thirty to thirty one. Oh I claim thirty one. Hey you get thirty? I claim both? No, you didn't, ye thirty Okay. Anyways, here we go. Albs for everybody, Jeff, Yeah, DIBs. Here we go, DIBs. To whom can you compare God? What image can you find to resemble him? Can he be compared to an idol formed in a mold overlaid with gold and decorated with silver chains? Or if people are too poor for that, they might at least choose wood that won't decay, and a skilled craftsman to carbon image that won't fall down. Haven't you heard? Don't you understand? Are you deaf to the words of God, the words he gave before the world began? Are you so ignorant? God sits above the circle of the earth. The people below seem like grasshoppers to him. He spreads out the heavens like a curtain and makes his tent from them. He judges the great people of the world and brings them all to nothing. They hardly get started, barely taking root, when the wind blows on them, and they wither, and the wind carries them off like chaff. To whom will you compare me? Who's my equal? Asks the Holy One? Look up into the heavens, who created all the stars? He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing. Oh Jacob, how can you say the Lord does not see your troubles? Oh Israel, how can you say God ignores your rights? Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. Even the youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will so or high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary, and they will walk and not faint. Bam Isaiah forty thirty one. Yep. And so my story is is that was my verse. I was going to make it my life verse. You know, I was going to say that's my life verse. But I didn't. I end up choosing first Crientiens, fifteen fifty eight. But it was it was a good candidate. It was a good candidate. It gave a good presentation. But the reason why solicited you is because you consider us for your life verse. I mean, how did this work that you? Yeah, so like make a list. I'm trying to hate that one, trying it and I okay, yeah, I'm just curious how your brain works. Here comes So my wife, who is my girlfriend back then. Should still be your girlfriend? By the way, Oh she is? Well you know, okay, sure, I still date her, but sorry, Liz, she's my wife. So she she gave me a bookmark with Isaiah chapter forty, and who knows, it might have just been thirty one, but I think it was thirty thirty one. And then I had a card on my desk of that same verse. And then I had a key chain, and so for a very very long time it was a big, huge eagle keychain that was all my keys, I bet you. From when I was sixteen till probably through my second year of college, I had that key chain. And then when that broke, I got another key chain with that same verse on it. And so I just always have had that verse around me. And I remember hearing a message one time by a good friend of mine who actually said when it says wait upon the Lord, and he said, renew your strength, and he said, I'd like to take a little liberty with that word weight, and so he announced that he was taking liberty. But he said, there are two ways to wait on God. One is God's timing to wait patiently on him, But another one is to wait upon him as a waiter would wait upon a person to serve him. He said, So he goes while you're waiting on God. Wait on God. Wait on God while you're waiting on God. And he said, so serve him and wait patiently. I thought that that was super cool. Yes, so that comes from the King James. So the Passenger of the day said, those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. But the King James says, but they that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint. That was the first short time I went to a Christian school, and that was our school verse and we were the eagles. Oh cool, yeah, asked, So we had to say it every day when we say the pledge to allegiance. Oh really, yeah yeah, And then there was a song that we did. Yeah so yeah, So that idea I've heard that before, to wait and wait the two different versions of that. But it's a trust thing. Most of the other translations translated those who trust in the Lord. And what that's saying is, you know when even even when they're when God doesn't seem to be in a hurry, we still trust him. There's a book of proverbs, right, lean out on your own understandings, but in all your ways acknowledge him. He shall direct your paths. And trusting the Lord kind of an idea with all your heart lean not to your understanding. And so this trust isn't just a belief that everything's gonna work out. Okay, it's not just some anomaloust faith thing. It's you know, oh, I'm just I just have faith. What does that mean? Right? Right? Or I'm just trusting God's gonna work it out. But rather there's forward movement in the Book of Proverbs when it talks about trusting the Lord. And that's kind of what your friend was admitting to that, Hey, I'm taking some liberties. But the reality is there's an action involved with trust. It's you know, I can remember my daughter. We used to have some stairs and when she was little. I'd go up, She's three years old or whatever, and I put my hands up safe jump, jump, I'll catch it. Jump, And she could tell me all the day long she trusted me. She can tell me all day long, she believed me. She'd tell me all day long she has faith in me. And all those things are vague and none of those are actually real until she actually jumped off the stairs and let me catch her right right. And that's the idea here is those who trust in the Lord. If you look at the other one, trust the Lord with all your heart and lean out on your own understandings in all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths. There's forward movement with that, not just a faker anomalous, you know, weird belief, mystical belief, but it's a god. I'm going to move forward trusting you. So I like this idea that it's indicating perseverance and strength and move forward just like you said. Yeah, because he says he will renew their strength. Sore high like wings on wings like eagles. They were run and that weird. They were walking out faint. I remember going repelling in the mountains of Tennessee and we climbed up like, I don't know, two hundred feet in the air, so and we were repelling down a mountain and below us there was eagles soaring, and we were higher than the eagles, and it was a great big canyon, you know, in the middle of these mountains, and just you know, the squawking eagle that just echoed throughout the canyon and there he is soaring below us and we're sort of above him. And I just thought to myself, like, what a majestic creature obviously right, one of the most majestic. And you know, and when it says here, you know they was sore. You was sore. High on wings like eagles, you will run in acro wear, you will walking on faint the idea that an eagle soars effortlessly, you know, and he just, you know, sort of just leaned this way, lean this way, and just depend on the wind and just that up uplifting whatever it is the aerodynamics on his wings, and he just sort of effortlessly flies and it says you're gonna run and acuro wear, you're gonna walking out fate. And I thought to myself, God gives you strength when you have none, you know, it's that whole like sec can wind or you know, endurance that you didn't know you had all because you're trusting God, which means it's not just physical, it's spiritual, it's emotional, it's everything else. God, I'll just give your strength and move on whatever it is that you're facing. Those thermals that the eagles will catch, you know, coming off the heat and that when it's rising, they'll hit those and then they'll fly inside that go up. Have you ever ridden in a small helicopter I have. Yeah. Yeah, So if you ever go and a friend of mine had one. And if you're ever going over like farmland and then suddenly hit a forest, there's so much energy warmth in that forest. All of a sudden, it'll push you up and then when you come back out over top of the farmland, you'll drop again. And it was really surprising. We would move sometimes it felt like maybe eight ten feet just as soon as you would hit that thermal spot. And so those eagles, that's one of the things that's why eagles just are able to go lied. Or if you ever watch hawks fly, same thing. Sometimes the buzzards, when you see the big buzzers out there flying, they're they're looking for those spots where the heat is rising and then they get in that and they just and it lifts them and so there's far less energy. You watch a chickadee and it's just fast, fast wings, fast wings, fast wings. Right. You watch a hummingbird, fast, fast, fast, and they consume so many calories for their body weight. They go through so much energy to get from one place another. Hey, flying's cool, but the eagles or a hawk when they hit that that thermal, that thermal lists them up and they're not burning energy. They're just riding that thermal. All they have to do is kind of steer a little bit. And I was on a balloon one time. I just took my wife and some friends on a balloon ride. We were in Egypt. We went up over the Valley of the Kings where they found King Tuttom. It was kind of neat right along the Now River in Luxor. But the first time I went on a ballon ride was in Meanmar along the Irrawady River. And we went right along the edge of the jungle for a while, and then the guy says, hey, you want to go up high. We're like yeah. He said, I can take you fifteen thousand feet. I'm like sure, Well, man, there's a big difference between being one hundred feet off the ground and fifteen thousand feet. And he said with his he said, I don't have enough gas. I can't get out up there. But he said he's always paying attention to where the thermals are when it's cooler, when it's warmer, he feels the balloon go up and down, and then he feels he can feel the wind drafts going side to side. So that's all he has to do is figure out how to steer back over there. And that's what it was able to elevate us super high. So he used gas. But he couldn't have gotten us that high if he wasn't finding those thermals. And that's what I think about here, is when you have the little chickadee and he's working so hard to go from spot to spot to spot to spot, and then you look at that eagle and he's trusting in the fact that this heat is going to rise and lift him. This is what God's saying is you can do all the work yourself you want to, right, That's what young men tend to do. Just muscle it up, work hard, right, And he says even use though become weak and tired, young man will fall in exhaustion. We wonder why we're worn out by life, It's because we're doing it the hard way. We're doing it the way everybody else does it. We're just hustling, we're working hard. And I'm not saying you shouldn't work hard and do those things. But if we would trust God's way and we would go his direction, then you soar high on wings like eagles. Now eagles are powerful, but they could never fly like they fly if it weren't for the fact that they were relying on those thermals to lift them. And that's what he's talking about, is that's what God does. When you place your trust in God. He directs your paths, you decide you're going to move out with him. He provides the lift. And that's why people wind up going so much further than you'd ever expect, is because God's the one who gives the lift. It says here in my notes on my Bible and verse there were thirty one. It says some translations render the phrase find new strength as renew and it actually means to exchange, as taking off old clothes and putting on new. We exchange our weakness for His power. And it references to Two Corinthians, chapter twelve, and it says as we trust God, he he enables us to soar during a crisis, to run when our challenges are many, and to walk faithfully in routine, day by day in the demands of life. Walking in the ordinary pressures of life can be much more difficult than flying like an eagle at a time of crisis. So I thought that that was interesting to exchange taking off as an exchanging taking off old clothes and putting on new, exchanging weakness for strength. Isn't that great? That's a fantastic, fantastic way to say that they shall renew their strength. And so anyway, I do. I do think that the promise of power and strength is really the best Verses twenty nine actually, and it says he gives to the week, and excuse me, he gives power to the week and strength to the powerless, which is again just sort of lines up with yesterday's verse. Right. Yeah, so Paul said in my weakness, you are strong. Therefore all boast of my weaknesses. And Paul never really explained what his struggle was, which I like. I like the fact that it could be applicable to everybody. But just know that if you feel like you can't go on, if you feel like you're struggling, if you feel like you can't make it another day. In fact, there are people that I know, and you know I'm sure personally that are ready to give up and they say I'm going to cash it in. You know I can't make it another day. The struggle is too hard. Just know that you know God can continue to sustain you. His grace is sufficient for you. But more importantly, He has a purpose for you. He has a plan for you, He has a calling for you. He can work in you and through you in spite of your struggles or whatever it is that you're facing that you don't see any hope of the you know, no light at the end of the tunnel. Us know that God's with you, and he can and will redeem you and use you for great things if you're just faithful, if you just trust in Him and depend on him for strength, he'll give it to you. That's good. Yeah, well, that looks to be about our time, and so hopefully we will see you tomorrow on the Bible guys,