The Source of Strength

09/12/15

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.” —ISAIAH 30: 15

Most people I know strive. They never seem to have enough money at the end of the month; they always seem to have too much month left at the end of the paycheck. The job is rough, the kids are a mess, and life just seems to be overwhelming. I think it safe to say most everyone is fighting some kind of fight or another.

But in the midst of all the striving, there are few that thrive. Adversity and angst don’t seem to be a part of who they are. They seem to be at peace in the midst of calamity. Their focus seems to be somewhere beyond all the carnage and wreckage of the world around them. They are at peace. Or at least they sure seem to be.

Isaiah the prophet had the unpleasant task of telling his fellow countrymen that their antics with idolatry and oppression were an offense to the God they called their own and this God they claimed was going to punish them severely for their sins. Not a popular message then or now. Sometimes humanity just cannot raise its perspective beyond there here and now and what’s going to happen today. Humanity is so stuck in the moment.

And Isaiah, told his stuck-in-the-moment people: “This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.” In other words, Guys, quit striving, conniving and just to be surviving and sit quietly with God and learn from Him. Repentance and rest are the things that protect us from angst and living for the moment rather than living in the moment.

Rest and repentance, remarkably, are not inaction, nor are they reaction: they are true action, and intentional living: there is a plan and a purpose to the day that I have been given and I am going to intentionally live it out under the tutelage of God. Period. Repentance is turning from myself to Him and rest is the happy attitude that all is under His loving control and care: I have no worries because He has it all under control. And He never fails.

That’s all that God has ever really wanted from us anyway is the trust and belief in Him that He has it all under His control…and that He is always good, and He loves us fiercely and eternally. Living with God in this manner goes against the grain of most of humanity’s striving to make ends meet (however that pans out).

Today, if I am going to strive, I am going to strive only in this manner: to cease from striving and conniving, and to repent and rest in Him. I have a six-hour drive in front of me and I hope to capitalize on the time to rest and repent and find the reset of all my defaults in Him.

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength… don’t do what they did…” – God.