Isaiah 40:28-31 “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” This episode talks about how the Lord wants us to ask for more. It also talks about how we need to turn to Him for our strength and out power. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
I’m Not Greedy, I’m Just Needy!
Isaiah 40:28-31 “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
“He will not grow tired or weary.” I thought two things when I read this, the first was, wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t it be nice to not grow tired or weary? I know a lot of us are feeling tired and weary lately. There is a lot going on in our worlds and we are ready for a break. This is why my first thought was, wouldn’t that be nice. My second thought was, do we believe this? Do we believe that God doesn’t grow tired and weary? I wondered this because I feel as though often times we treat God as though this is not true. We treat God as if He is not the almighty and powerful Lord that does not grow tired or weary.
I say this because we tend to be cautious with our prayers. We save up our prayers for the really important times, as if we only get so many and we don’t want to run out. This may sound silly, but you know you have all thought that at one time or another. Maybe you didn’t think that exact thought, but you did hold back from asking God for something because it wasn’t that important and He had bigger things to think about. We have all done this. We want to pray that our child wins the football game but then we feel guilty because there are people with real problems and we are taking God’s attention away from them to ask Him to help our kids win a football game, or to help me find a parking spot. This verse is telling us something that we already know on some level, but have trouble believing. God does not grow tired or weary. God can help you with your small request and help someone else with their giant request all at the same time. He can do it all and still not grow tired or weary. He is that amazing.
The next line in the verse says his understanding no one can fathom. We can’t even begin to understand all that the Lord knows. We see how he is working in our lives and we think He is a little crazy, or we think He is upset with us because things aren’t going our way. We don’t understand that all these things are happening so that His plan for us to have ridiculous goodness can come to fruition. We needed to lose that job so that we could get this better one. We needed lose that sense of security so we could appreciate it when we gained it back. We needed to go through that hard time so that we could show someone else that they can get through it too. We can’t fathom the Lord’s understanding. It’s just like it says in Isaiah 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”declares the Lord.” The Lord knows what He is doing. It is ok if we don’t understand. It will all make sense one day.
The next line says, “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.” This is something that can really help us if we can remember it. He gives strength to the weary. How long have we been weary for? Did we know that God would give us strength? Did we ask for it? If there is a lot weighing down on your heart, I want you to know that I am right there with you. There isn’t a single person I know right now that is just coasting through life, no troubles to speak of. We are all weary. I would like to say that it is because of COVID, but I think it is more of a condition of living in a broken world. We are not perfect, we all hurt each other, sometimes without even knowing it. We have fallen into an age where our own pleasure, our own wants trump all else. We don’t want to hurt our loved ones, and we also don’t want to give up the things that we want. We are weary because we are trying to exist in a world that doesn’t understand the Christian way of life. We are weary because we are relying on the world to give us our strength, when our Lord is sitting by watching and trying to offer us the strength we need. However, we are so busy trying to do it all ourselves that we don’t see him there handing it out.
What is coming to me right now is, we need to stop turning to the world to get our strength and our power. Yes, the world does offer us power, and it might feel good for a while to have that power. However, if you find your power from he world you will never be fulfilled. You will always be searching for more. You will have this part of you that will always feel empty. However, if you turn to the Lord and you ask him for your strength and your power, He will fill you up completely. You will be lacking nothing. It says in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 “But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” God’s power is made perfect in our weakness. How great would it be if we could be like St. Paul and delight in our weaknesses, insults, hardships and persecutions? How many times will we need to hear that God will give us strength when we are weary and power when we are weak before we actually believe it? How long will we turn away from God and look elsewhere to find our power before we turn back to God and ask Him? He is standing there ready to give us all we need for the day and we are too busy looking every else for it that we don’t see it.
The verse ends with a really great visual. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” First it is telling us that everyone grows weary. It is not just those that have been around for a long time, even the youth grow weary. Actually, our youth in particular these days seem to be growing weary. None of us are exempt, and yet it says, those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. When we are weary and weak it is hard to hope. When we are weary it is usually because the enemy has wore us down and we are fresh out of hope. However, this verse is telling us that if we hope in the Lord, he will renew our strength. There it is again. There verse is repeating the Lord is our strength. Maybe this time will be the time that we truly hear it. Maybe today we will believe that the Lord does not grow weary and He doesn’t grow tired. Wouldn’t it be great if today is the day that we finally start turning to the Lord and asking him for that strength and power that he is just waiting to give us?
I heard these two phrases a few times over the last few days and they just came to mind again so I would like to share them with you. The first is the phrase, “more Lord more.” The Lord has so much more for you. We don’t want to ask for more sometimes because we don’t want to be greedy. We settle for little answers to our prayers because we don’t want to push our luck or we feel we should just be happy with what we get. The Lord wants us to ask for more. Yes, be grateful for what you receive and yet still ask for more. In the book “The Circle Maker” the author Mark Batterson talks about a man who was praying for rain as they hadn’t had rain in a very long time. This man drew a circle in the ground and told the Lord he would not leave that circle until the rain came. It finally started to sprinkle. Every started to rejoice and the man started to pray harder. He said that was not the rain he was praying for, He was praying for more rain, and it began to rain harder. He still said that was not the rain he was praying for. Finally it started to rains so hard that everyone had to run for cover. The Lord wants to do this in your life as well. Start saying, “Thank you Lord and more Lord more.” Be open to more, be willing to ask the Lord for more.
The other phrase I heard was in the Life in the Spirit Seminar video. David Mangan was talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. He was talking about how we should all be open to whatever gifts the Holy Spirit wants to give us, particularly the gift of speaking in tongues. This is one that people often don’t want as they find it weird. David was saying that he is open to any gifts the Lord is passing out and he is getting in line twice. Then he said, “It’s not that I am greedy, it’s that I am needy.” I love this because it is so true. We don’t have to feel as though we are greedy when we say “more Lord more.” We are needy, we all are. We can’t do anything without the Lord, and that makes us pretty needy. I just keep feeling as though the Holy Spirit really wants you to hear that the Lord has so much more for each and every one of you. Our prayers are too little, He is bigger than we give Him credit for. Stop playing little with your prayers. Step out in faith and ask for what you truly want, God has more for you. He does not grow weary or get tired. Keep asking, don’t limit yourself, Our God is a Big God who can do Big things. He is standing by waiting for you to trust that and for you to step out in faith and ask for the miracle you have been wanting but too afraid to ask for.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless everyone listening to this episode today. Lord you are amazing. I love when you speak to me and you give me a specific message for everyone listening. Lord, help us to believe and truly accept that you don’t grow weary or tired and that you love when we come to you. Help us to turn to you for all we need Lord. Help us to look to you for our strength and power Lord. Help us to say “more Lord more” with the expectant faith that you want to give us more, that you have more to give. Lord, I know you were speaking to some people individually when you were saying we needed to step out in faith and ask for more. I pray that those individuals hear that message deep in their hearts and that you give them the boldness and trust they need to pray those big prayers. Help us all to pray those big prayers Lord. Give us the grace of a more expectant faith Lord. We believe, help our unbelief. Lord, I especially want to pray for those that are weary and need your strength. Help them Lord, give them more. We love you Lord, you are so amazing. We are so grateful that with all you give to us, you are telling us to ask for more. We will take all you have to offer Lord, not because we are greedy, but because we are needy. We ask all of this in accordance with your word and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to seeing you again on Monday. Have a blessed weekend!