August 5 - Isaiah 36-41: The Object of Faith

Recently, several people have asked me about reentry to life after our time serving at the Breathe conference.  One of the answers to that question is that we were like the disciples seeing Jesus feed the 5000 with 5 fish and 2 loaves of bread - we saw God provide abundantly financially, emotionally, spiritually, physically, mentally, and in so many practical ways.  But once we returned, all of the pressures of life hit us and we were right back to the place of wondering how we would have the resources to meet all the demands.  Just like the disciples, who after the feeding of the 5000, feared for their lives as they sat in a boat in the middle of a storm  and wondered if Jesus would let them drown.  Jesus said to his disciples:

Why are you so afraid?  Do you still have no faith?  (Mark 4:40)

Tim Keller summarizes the scene this way:

"[the disciples] knew the boat was just seconds from being totally filled and they would die.  They woke Jesus and said, 'Don't you care if we drown?'  This picture goes to our hearts, because everyone who's ever tried to live a life of faith in this world has felt like this sometimes.  Everything is going wrong, you're sinking, and God seems to be asleep, absent, or unaware...

 "Jesus asks the disciples, 'Do you still have no faith?' That could actually be translated as, 'Where is your faith?' I love that way of phrasing it.  By asking the question in this way, Jesus is prompting them to see that the critical factor in their faith is not its strength, but its object...."

"That's because it's not the quality of your faith that saves you; it's the object of your faith."  [Kings' Cross]

This is so liberating to me. After too many years of hearing misguided teaching about just believing enough, having enough faith, or having the right kind of faith, this clarifies why it's not about my faith.  It's about whether Christ is the object of my faith or I am the object of my faith. God didn't change from the God who fed the 5000 or the God who abundantly provided all we needed for our trip.  I changed - or better said, my focus changed  - from depending on God as the only Source of life to trying to figure out life on my own.

What does this have to do with Isaiah?  As I read these 6 chapters, I kept seeing over and over who God is.  He is unlike anyone else.  He is unlike any other god.  Who is this God - the object of my faith?

...you and you alone are God. (37:20)

He's the one who has 'been behind this all along' (37:26)

Who has scooped up the ocean in his two hands, or measured the sky between his thumb and little finger, who has put all the earth's dirt in one of his baskets, weighed each mountain and hill?  Who could ever have told God what to do or taught him his business? (40:12-17)

So who even comes close to being like God?  To whom or what can you compare him? (40:18)

'Who is like me?  Who holds a candle to me?' says the Holy.   Look at the night skies:  Who do you think made all this?  Who marches this army of stars out each night, counts them off, calls each by name - so magnificent!  so powerful! - and never overlooks a single one? (40:25-26)

Why would you ever complain...or, whine...'God has lost track of me.  He doesn't care what happens to me'?  Don't you know anything?  Haven't you been listening?  God doesn't come and go. God lasts.  He's Creator of all you can see or imagine.  (40:27-28)

That's my God - who fed the 5000, who spoke and calmed the raging storm, who gives fresh strength when I wait on Him, who provides above and beyond all I can ask or imagine.  That's Who should be the object of my faith.