Episode 1398: With Wings Like Eagles

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1398 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:07] Rich Lewis: I'm Rich Lewis. I challenge you to invest in yourself and invest in others, develop your influence, and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to listen to the voice of God is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend, These

[00:00:39] Scott Maderer: wings of call, of service, of love are what we are called to promote and share, not those of judgment and hate and fear and anger. So let us walk and not be weary, let us run and not faint as we seek to represent the God upon whom [00:01:00] we wait. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:01:06] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you

[00:01:32] In today's Spiritual Foundation episode, I talk about Isaiah chapter 40 verses 21 through 31 and Mark chapter 1 verses 29 through 39. I talk about what it really means to wait on the Lord. And I also talk about how often waiting means trusting in what we are called to do. Isaiah chapter 40 verses 21 through 31 says, have you not known?

[00:01:59] Have you not [00:02:00] heard? Has it not been told to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to live in who brings princes to not and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.

[00:02:23] Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble. To whom, then, will you compare me? Or who is my equals as the Holy One? Lift up your eyes on high and see, who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name.

[00:02:46] Because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel? My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God. Have you not [00:03:00] known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary.

[00:03:09] His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted. But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. And they shall walk and not faint.

[00:03:30] Mark chapter 1 verses 29 through 39 says, As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Now Simon's mother in law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

[00:03:54] That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons, and the whole [00:04:00] city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons, and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to the deserted place, and there he prayed.

[00:04:17] And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, Everyone is searching for you. And he answered, Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also. That passage from Isaiah ends with something that I think we've all heard before about lifting us up on wings of eagles, but not to put too light a moment on it, but the actual beginning of that passage is, but those who [00:05:00] wait for the Lord.

[00:05:01] Yeah. Think about what that actually means. What does it mean to wait on the Lord? How do we wait on the Lord? Isn't it something that we're always doing? It's the condition that we find ourselves in, right? Everything that we do seems to involve waiting for the Lord. We pray and then we wait, we work and then we wait, we get on with our lives.

[00:05:25] And yet all the while we're waiting to see. what God's going to do, what's going to happen. After all, we can't force God to take action on anything. We can't ensure that God will respond in any particular way to our request or our prayers, or we'll even respond in a way that is visible to us at all. So waiting on the Lord seems to be exactly what we're always doing, right?

[00:05:51] Living in the world and waiting. But if you go back to the beginning of these verses from Isaiah and take another look, [00:06:00] that may not be the kind of waiting that Isaiah is actually talking about. It doesn't seem to be talking about waiting for God to take action. Instead, it's about a call to recognize who God is.

[00:06:18] Have you not known? Have you not heard? He's asking, Isaiah is asking about the understanding of the nature of God, the presence of God, the reality of God. He's saying God goes back to the beginning before us and after us, that God is all around us. God is the source of the very air that we breathe in the ground beneath our feet.

[00:06:45] Isaiah is not talking about waiting in terms of waiting for something outside of us to come over and give us the ability to do something. He's not saying that we're waiting on something that's never going to come. [00:07:00] Instead, he's talking about waiting in the form of paying attention to what already is.

[00:07:09] We're asked to know that God is there. God is already among us. God is already around us. God is already within us. The waiting that we're talking about means trusting. It means believing. It means being confident in the Lord, confident that the Lord will take care of things and it's not our action that is required, that we don't have to take on the job or the role of God, that instead we're asked to open our eyes and recognize that God is at work all around us.

[00:07:45] We're supposed to see God's action in the encounters and the relationships and the people of God. We wait on God as we wait on those in need. This is that call to serve, to feed, [00:08:00] to tend, to visit, to invite even those who we disagree with. And there is power in that service. You've probably seen it. You've seen it.

[00:08:11] If you've served in your community and even a small way, you've seen that feeling of mounting up with wings, like eagles, when you've received back way more than you gave that, that it was more blessed to give than to receive. You're blessed more when you bless others. That's the strength that it seems to be talking about.

[00:08:34] That in those moments, there's always an abundance. There's always more resources. There's more chances. There's more ability to do even more. The passage from Mark seems to be talking a little bit about that. Simon's mother in law who's sick and that Jesus touches her and immediately heals her. And then it says she immediately gets up and begins to serve them.

[00:08:59] She didn't get [00:09:00] up and say, Yay I'm healthy. She didn't get up and celebrate her recovery or her good fortune. No. She gets up and begins to serve others. She literally began to wait on the Lord. That is a witness. That is part of what the crowd gathered and saw. And that's why they brought others sick to Jesus.

[00:09:25] And, Why were they healed? How were they healed? We don't really get told any of that, and it's not that important. Either way, Jesus uses the power to heal, and then it must, he must have to sit down and recharge, or rest, or maybe it's just the end of a long day. But at some point, he gets up while it's still dark, and to get up means he must have laid down.

[00:09:51] And then he steps out and slips off to the dark, deserted place and begins to pray. Jesus was [00:10:00] focused on one thing at that moment, spending time with God, going back to God and waiting on God. He knew the effort and the focus and the energy that was needed. He knew that the only way to walk and not faint, to run and not be weary is to take time to be with God, to set aside everything else and be fully present.

[00:10:25] with God. And then the disciples show up and say, Hey, everyone's looking for you. And Jesus says, we're moving on to the next town. At first glance, that may seem harsh, but Jesus says, we're going so that I may proclaim the message there also. For this is what I came to do. This is the job. This is what Jesus is there to do, to spread the message.

[00:10:52] The healing is just a bonus. It's just an extra thing. The message is what he's there to deliver. [00:11:00] And he's already talked to those around Simon's mother in law's house. He's already impacted this community. And maybe he is supposed to step out and do something down the road. It's not really our responsibility to justify that Jesus moves on to the next town or to question what's going on.

[00:11:23] Instead, maybe we just need to reflect on the fact that this is what happened. And it's not our job to justify it. It's not our job to understand it. It's not our job to correct it if it's wrong. Instead, it's our job to wait on the Lord. These are the very wings that we're lifted up with. These are the things that we fly with.

[00:11:48] These wings of call, of service, of love are what we are called to promote and share. Not those of judgment and hate and fear and anger. [00:12:00] So let us walk and not be weary. Let us run and not faint as we seek to represent the God upon whom we wait. Thanks for listening.

[00:12:18] Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor, go over to facebook. com slash inspired stewardship and like our Facebook page and market that you'd like to get notifications from us so that we can connect with you on Facebook and make sure that we're serving you to the best of our abilities with time and tips [00:13:00] there.

[00:13:01] Until next time, invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world.

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