Isaiah 8:1-9:21, 2 Corinthians 12:1-10, Psalms 55:1-23, Proverbs 23:4-5
Today is the 11th day of September. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it is a pleasure and a joy to be here with you around the global campfire together in community as we take the next step forward in our journey through the Bible this year. And I think we have moved into the book of Isaiah, we’re settling in now, we’ve gotten many chapters into the book. And, so, we will continue that journey and we are fully moved into the letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthians, second Corinthians and we have a few days left in that letter. So, we’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. Isaiah 8 and 9 today.
Commentary:
Okay. In Psalms today we read some things that certainly we’ve all felt before. Maybe…maybe some of you are feeling this right now. Listen to these words. “Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me. And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest; yes, I would wander far away; I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah I would hurry to find a shelter from the raging wind and tempest.” Right? Have you ever had those moments when life has become so overwhelming and anxiety is just kinda like ripping you up, that you’re like, “if I could just fly away”, right? “If I could just fly away from here. If I could just get out of here.” Right? So, the Bible’s speaking our language. The Bible…right…like the Bible isn’t going, “now, now there dear. It’s all gonna be…”. We’re not…it’s not just giving us a pat on the butt. It’s actually speaking honest words from honest lips that are very human and that we all understand, which is why a few stanzas later in this song that King David wrote, we find one of the most famous passages of Scripture in all of the Bible and one that gives us incredible amounts of comfort. “Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you. He will never permit the righteous to be moved.” So, a very famous passage of Scripture to be sure, but here’s the thing about the famous passages that we know from the Bible, they’re not magic spells, right? There is…the Bible is full of books but there is no book of magic in the Bible that’s full of versus full of magic spells that can be recited to get things done. So, certainly memorizing Scripture, certainly, being able to recall Scripture is obviously appropriate and I couldn't…I couldn’t say how immensely helpful, but the words themselves, like just saying the words, even if we’ve memorized the words, the words aren’t magic. There are explicit instructions, right, that we must cast or give our burdens to the Lord. So, like just saying “cast your burdens on the Lord and He will carry…”, like just saying the words isn’t actually casting your burdens anywhere. It’s just saying some words about burdens. So, David laid out how he was feeling and we all understand how that feels, and like I said, some of us are feeling that way right now and we have this famous verse that we can recite and wonder, you know, like how do I make this work, but the verse contains the instructions within it, that you have to let go of your burdens and give them over to the Lord. The famous passage that we might be able to quote from memory is inviting us into action. So, if we’re not willing to let go of our burdens, if we’re not willing to cast them on the Lord then we can recite that verse all day long, it’s not gonna do anything. If we want to move to the part where God is gonna to take care of us and not permit us to stumble then we’re gonna actually have to collaborate by doing our part, which is to let…to release…to let our hands that are gripping this burden, let go, let it go, give it to the Lord, which doesn’t mean that we do that right now. Like, okay, ah…exhale, “I release, I let it go, I give it to you God” only to go back and get it in an hour, right? Like, we’re casting…we’re letting go…we’re casting the burden on the Lord like permanently. We’re not going to the Lord and saying, “hey, this thing is heavy. It’s overwhelming. Could you babysit this for me for an hour so I can catch my breath and then I’ll come back and get it.” Right, we’re being invited to fully trust God. We’re being invited to release our expectations and invite Him to show us the next steps, letting Him take care of us, right? He says He will - if we’ll let go of our burdens, He’ll take care of us, but we have to let Him. This is an ongoing thing on our part, right? This is a trust issue on our part. So, David said he wanted fly away like a bird and I know what that feels like and I think you know what that feels like to and I think a lot of you know what that feels like right this minute. Maybe you’re not gonna get wings today, right? So, maybe you’re not gonna walk out the front door and all of a sudden have wings and you can just fly away. But you don’t need to get wings today. Let go. Cast your burdens on the Lord and He will care for you and shelter you with His wings. You don’t need your own. He will shelter you with His wings
Prayer:
Holy Spirit come into that. Anxiety, depression, overwhelmed, underwater - these kinds of words, this kind of language is common in all of our cultures. The world is moving fast, too fast and there’s too much…there’s too much going on. And, so, it sweeps is away. This is the world. It just pulls us into like a tornado and we’re just spinning, spinning, spinning, not knowing which way is up and there’s too much to keep up with and we can’t keep up. And, so, we find ourselves of the world, not just in it. But You’re giving us permission to step away. You’re saying, “you don’t have to live that…you have to be in it, but you don’t have to be of it. You don’t have to be swept away, you can let go. I’ll navigate with you.” And, so, we need that. We cast our burdens upon You. We release them to You. We let go. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
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