They will Soar Like Eagles

Isaiah 40:26-31

Albertville

Rev. Michael A. Trask

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As people all over the country, tighten up their purse strings, various well-known manufacturers and distributers of goods and services are beginning to feel the pinch; some who were on the edge to begin with have gone into bankruptcy. As you hear about all this, you might be wondering about the solvency of your own employer. Will you have a job by this time next year? And if your self-employed you wonder if you will have any customers. The news has not been good of late

The stresses we are seeing now seem unique; even unprecedented, but they aren’t really. Every generation, in the United States has had it’s moments of great stress when they thought that everything was going to unravel and come apart at the seams. Take the Civil War for example: Many people openly wondered if we would even be a nation by the end of it. Or think back even further with George Washington and 12,000 troops of the continental army endured during the winter at Valley Forge. To them, it was the bleakest of the bleak. They lacked good food, They lacked warm clothes, some even lacked boots and wrapped their feet in rags. Those that lived, would come out of that winter to fight for the freedom that we now enjoy. So no, very difficult times are not unprecedented or unique to us or to the world. The question is not will we get bad news, but rather how shall we cope with the bad news that we get.

In today’s text, the prophet Isaiah is writing to the people of Israel during a time, when they felt like their strength was sapped and they had no hope. Like us, they had concerns about the national news. The news for them was by no means good. The dreadful assyrians, a constant threat, were breathing down their necks, and later it would be the Babylonians, those star-worshipping captors who would take them all away to live in exile. As they thought about all the stuff that was happening around them, they became very disheartened.

They were mumbling things too. Isaiah actually quotes them. They were saying “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God.” In other words “God doesn’t really care about us!” “How can he?” Look at all this bad and difficult stuff that is happening all around us.” “He’s not really in charge of things!”

What happened was they began to see their problems as being bigger than God himself. It didn’t even cross their minds that the Lord of all might have something to say about their problems. They had made a subtle exchange over the years. They exchanged their faith in God for their own knowledge of the ways of the world. And we are tempted to make the same sort of shift. We have this tendency to take different areas of our lives and exclude the possibility that God has something to say about it. “Let’s see, my work, hmm, no that’s not God’s area, business no he has nothing to say about that. Finances, naw. My love life, no God doesn’t know anything about that, that’s my area.” It is our temptation to systematically exclude God from different aspects of our lives.

But then something happens. Things that we always thought of as constants; as automatics, begin to change. The price of Gasoline shoots up and then down; The stock market takes wild swings. It’s as if someone is tapping on the glass of our aquarium and we find ourselves quite disturbed. Israel was disturbed too. They had concluded that God was irrelevant in so many areas. They had lived as if he did not really exist. And now they accuse him of not caring!

To them, and I think also to us The prophet says “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” In other words: “You may have excluded God from your thinking and living....but he created you. And as the earthly stuff you put your trust in seems to be failing, remember that God is eternal; that he doesn’t grow tired or weary. And even though your financial problem is now baffling all of your experts, Your lord has understanding that no one can fathom.” “Look beyond the stuff of the world and stuff of your life and see the one who is behind and above it” You re not in charge of the present, God is! You are not in charge of the future, God is! God is in Charge! God is the Lord!” And now only is he in charge, but he loves you with a perfect love which means that he can be trusted completely.”

How do we know that he loves us? To the Israelites, Isaiah explained it in this way: “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And the government will be upon his shoulders, and he will be called Wonderful counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting father, Prince of peace.” (Isaiah 9) And of course, we know that this child who was born and Son who was given is Christ Jesus. We know that he established his kingdom by going to the cross to die for all of our sins. He didn’t have to do that. He wanted to do that. He wanted to that because he loved us and had compassion on us as he saw us dragging our feet and struggling in this broken world to give us peace..

Now Listen to Isaiah once again: “Do you not Know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God,....He will not grow tired and weary and his understanding no one can fathom.” “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. “ “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.”

God wants you to soar on wings like Eagles. And the way that happens is through the changing of perspective. When you begin to entrust your life to him rather than to your money, our economy, your wits or whatever other earth bound thing you can think of, you begin to see things as he sees them. Everything that is happening is dwarfed in comparison to the largeness and authority of the Lord. Like an Eagle in flight, you rise above the events of the earth and see them in a new and different way. Rather than being bogged down about your cares and worries, you soar above them because you know that your God is bigger than such things and that he loves you.

Yeah, you’ll still have problems, you will still have great challenges to face; all of us will until the day we die. The question is not if you will face problems, but rather, how you will face them. As Isaiah says “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings of eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” AMEN