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The Father's Business Podcast
The Father's Business Podcast
Strength to Equal Your Days-Cultivating Deep Roots in Quiet Seasons
Have you ever felt like God was silent in your weariest moments? That disconnect between knowing He promises strength and feeling completely depleted? You're not alone in that tension.
The familiar words of Isaiah 40:29-31 about soaring like eagles take on profound meaning when we realize they were first spoken to people in captivity for decades. How could they possibly relate to renewed strength while living in exile? This paradox mirrors our own spiritual journeys when God seems distant precisely when we need Him most.
We dive deep into what true spiritual strengthening looks like. This divine transaction happens beneath the surface, invisible to the eye but transformational to the soul.
Want to explore this subject further? Our new devotional "Strength to Equal Your Days" offers daily encouragement for living steady in an unsteady world. Visit our website to learn more about this resource that's perfect for graduates and anyone navigating life's challenges.
The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God. I'm Elizabeth Gunter Powell.
Speaker 2:And I am Kimberly Roddy. Welcome to the Father's Business podcast. We are so glad that you've joined us.
Speaker 1:Welcome everybody to our podcast. We are excited about a new series we're starting based on our latest book, our devotional book Strength to Equal your Days. We're going to explore how to live steady in an unsteady world, looking at a couple of different topics over the next several weeks that can all be found inside the devotional Strength to Equal your Days.
Speaker 2:We are really glad that you're here with us today. If you have not had an opportunity to purchase our latest devotional Strength to Equal your Days, please go to our website and check that out. It's an excellent resource. Many people have already enjoyed it and given us feedback on that. This is a great time of year to get it, because it's time for graduations and Mother's Day and Father's Day, and if you're looking for a devotional to give someone, it is an excellent one to give away to people so they can benefit and be blessed from it. So if you're feeling weary, I don't know, stretched thin, wondering where God is in the middle of your story, in the middle of the season in your life, you're not alone. You're not alone at all.
Speaker 1:No, you are not. I think a lot of us are feeling that way, and so today we want to talk about a kind of strength that doesn't show up on the surface always. It's the quiet, steady strengthening that God does when we feel like nothing's happening.
Speaker 2:It's easy at times to feel like nothing is happening. I often think about plants or trees when they're growing. I've got a plant right next to me and when I watered the plant yesterday, from yesterday to today I haven't watched the plant grow. It feels like nothing is really changing. It's kind of like roots in a tree. You can't see the roots growing, but in the dry seasons they go deeper underground to actually find water because they need it and the water supply is down there. In the same way, god does this for us. His deepest strengthening is sometimes in our hidden seasons that we can't seem to find Him in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's a really hard place to find yourself because it feels like in some ways maybe you've been abandoned by God.
Speaker 1:And there are a lot of people that in those seasons quote a familiar verse to us out of Isaiah 40, verse 29 to 31 say he gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall. But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on wings like eagles and they will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. And I know people are well-meaning and even I'm well-meaning sometimes when I remind my friends who are telling me that they are weary or they're in a tough place of this promise of God. And the promise is true. But if you're the one who's kind of wondering where God is in the weariness, it's like that's awesome.
Speaker 1:But I don't feel that way, my circumstances don't look like that, and I think sometimes people forget to hear the verses in the greater context, because these verses weren't written to people that were doing well, it was written to God's people. He had told them you are my chosen ones and you are my people, but then they are in captivity for. Some say 50 years, some say 70 years, depending on what Bible scholar you listen to. But when these verses are written, they've been in captivity for at least 50 years. And you hear God say I will renew your strength and you will mount up with wings like eagles. And if I was one of those people in captivity, my first reaction would be when Because it doesn't feel like I'm soaring right now and it doesn't look like you've been showing up for us for over 50 years- yeah, I think that's where it's interesting, elizabeth, to think about the word renew.
Speaker 2:It says the Lord will renew their strength, and renew isn't just like a recharge. I think about when I plug my phone in at night and it's ready for the next day, but then it runs out again. Right, we got to do this over and over, and the last two episodes we talked about Psalm 23. We talked about the idea of striving and how we have to move beyond striving. So the word renew literally means to exchange, and so it is a complete swap. God exchanges our weakness for his strength, and sometimes the way he strengthens us doesn't always feel powerful or strong. In the moment it might feel like stillness, it might feel like waiting, it might feel like nothing, but under the surface he's building something that's unshakable in us. He's exchanging his strength for our weakness.
Speaker 1:Easy to hear and it's easy for my mind to agree that that is truth, but sometimes that's hard to feel and believe and that's where faith has to come into this. And so today we're going to invite all of us to look at our weary places with fresh eyes. What if this waiting, this stillness that you're talking about, kimberly, this nothingness from our perspective, isn't a waste? What if that's where our roots have a chance to grow down deeper into Him?
Speaker 1:You know, I remember a season several years ago when everything around me felt very uncertain and I just had to step out in obedience into things and trust that God was going to be there for me, and I expected to see some sort of fruit quickly, like, ok, god, I'm going to trust you with this, I'm going to pray about this, I'm going to put this in the for Jesus to do box, right, like all the things we teach. And I expected something to change or something to shift immediately. But instead it felt really silent and I questioned whether I had heard God, right, if he was really there for me. And I remember at one point I even said it'd be nice if you could just even send me a postcard, like anything. And so sometimes the silence and the waiting is just really hard to get through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think sometimes it makes you feel like God, did I miss you?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like that can be really disorienting. So how did you really see God show up in that for you, elizabeth Well?
Speaker 1:it was a lot of me kicking and screaming, being honest, but what he kept inviting me to do because I kept thinking, well, do I need to pray more? Should I read my Bible more? Is there some sin in my life that's causing me not to be able to hear him? And those are questions we do need to ask from time to time but he just kept inviting me not to do more, but just be with him, just trust him. You're not in this alone. I am here and just be with him.
Speaker 1:And what felt like silence was actually a space for me hear an audible voice come down from heaven and speak to me. But I just got this sense of his peace and his presence. And what I could almost hear him say although I did not hear God say these words to me was what makes you think I'm not, and it wasn't in the busyness, it was when I would just slow down and go. Okay, god, I don't get you, I don't like the way you're handling it, but I'm just going to surrender to whatever this is you're doing in this moment and I trust I'm your sheep, I hear your voice and when I'm supposed to hear from you, I am. That piece came of. I've got you. But, just like a parent with a child, sometimes we don't always give them everything that they need or demand in the moment, because we know that's not the best thing for them. There's some lessons to be learned in the process, and so it's having to trust that he's a good father that is going to show up when he's ready to show up.
Speaker 2:And I think it's through that stillness and through that being with him and through that not striving, as we said earlier, that our roots actually get deeper, because that's the essence of what faith is. Yeah, colossians 2.7 says let your roots grow down into him and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong. So I know that we don't like to think about what's going on under the surface, because we can't always see that, and we like to change what we can see and control. But what's really going on under the surface in those moments, through being with Jesus and being still with Him, is our faith is growing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think, kimberly, you and I both can look at seasons in our life where our world really got shaken by really big things and you realize, oh wow, I am stronger than I think because of the work that God has been doing in me so that my roots have gone deeper into Him so that even when that wave hits me, I'm still standing.
Speaker 1:I think of it more when I look at other people's lives. Sometimes when you hear someone else's story and it's just wave after wave of really hard things they've had to go through. I have said to people before how are you still standing? Because I'm looking at it through my lens and my perspective of what I think I could handle and what I've had to remind myself is they're able to stand in that because of all of the journeys and the ways that, through the silence and the waiting and the stuff going on underneath the surface that they don't even fully understand, god has strengthened them to a point to where they can stand in that. And so in each of our journeys I may not be able to stand through all the things that my friend's been through, but that's because God hasn't taken me on the same journey that they've been on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you think about the analogy, while you were talking, I was thinking about the analogy of a tree during a storm like a hurricane. I live near the ocean. We get a lot of hurricanes on this side of the coast and so you'll see these trees that don't bend because their roots go down so deep and other times they get pulled up. You know, the force is so strong and it's kind of you don't know what's going to happen when. But for the most part you do tend to see these trees like just they may sway a little bit, but it's like man, how, in the midst of that wind, is that standing strong? It's standing strong because the roots are so deep.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, kimberly, we have a huge old oak tree and up on the ridge where we live and I watch it every time we have a storm come through because you're like, okay, all right, this might be the one that takes it out. I would love nothing more if we could like cut back the earth and just look and see how far and wide that root system goes. And so I think that was the encouragement to me, especially when we were going through all the stuff with my dad and the phone calls would come that hey, we got to call 911, ambulance is coming. You know the true trauma, panic moments with my dad.
Speaker 1:I couldn't pray in that moment. I didn't feel like I had the strength to do anything, and I remembered what I always would just say is God, I am calling on everything I know of you and me and all the years of reading your word and everything that I've ever prayed. I'm just calling on all of that right now. And so I didn't realize at the time. Until we're kind of having this conversation, I'm like, oh, what I was doing was I was like, okay, the roots that you built and seasons where you were silent. Now I'm pulling up on all of that strength.
Speaker 1:And so maybe some of us right now are in a season where God seems silent and it's tempting to just go numb. Just turn to I don't know Netflix, whatever your broken cistern of choice is, but when life gets hard, you just want to kind of curl up on the couch and sort of stick your head in the sand and pretend like it's not going on. And so in those moments for those of us that may be, in those moments now where life is just really hard, how do we learn to long for more of him, to become content with where we are and keep our hearts and eyes engaged on trusting him, knowing that this is a necessary season that we have to walk through and I don't think it's impossible, but I think it's really hard to do that on your own. I think that's when the community of faith needs to come around you and help remind you that, while it may feel like God is silent, he is very near while it may feel like God is silent, he is very near.
Speaker 2:Yeah, waiting is not easy. Keeping your heart engaged, trusting during the silence, is not simple. It's not encouraging. Right and Lamentations 3, 25 and 26 says the Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him. It is good to wait quietly. But the idea of waiting isn't passive. It's actually an active word, typically in the Scriptures. So we have to remember that. It's not just idly sitting by twiddling our thumbs or whatever. It is being interconnected with God while he is at work.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just to remember, in the period of waiting, you're not idle and God is not idle.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Even if you feel that way, that's not what's happening. Feel that way, that's not what's happening. So when we long for answers, when we long for direction, let us find comfort that God is with us in that waiting and he's actually working. He's preparing us for something, he's doing something, he's at work. So I would say to you be blessed to lean into the silence. I would say to me be blessed to lean into the silence, trusting that God's timing is perfect, that His plans are for good. Because it's hard to believe that, but we can cling to what we know to be true of the character of God.
Speaker 1:And going back to that Isaiah 40 passage that we talked about at the beginning, some translations say those that wait on the Lord, some say those that hope in the Lord, and so it's that same idea that you're getting around, kimberly. That waiting to us kind of sounds like I'm waiting for my ride, I'm waiting at the doctor's office, which I have had to do this week, and it's just mind numbing. It feels like a waste of time to wait. And yet what you're talking a lot more is that active relationship with God, that understanding and being encouraged that he is not silent, he is not forgotten you, he is still present and he's at work. And I think a lot of times we can see in scripture this connection between hope and endurance. I don't like the word endurance because that means having to choose to wait, choose to push through, but I think a lot of times God is asking us to come to him with a heart of hope and endurance, that God is preparing things for us and that we have to trust his timing. And so I think one of the main things, kimberly, you and I would want people to hear as they're listening to this, who may be in very hard places, is you are not alone and you are not forgotten. And it's not that God is not doing something. God is always up to something. I mean he's been busy all through creation and then all throughout scripture.
Speaker 1:I love that we can read the Bible looking backwards, and we can see the narrative of when Israel was in captivity. God wasn't just sitting in heaven going. Well, I guess I have to wait 50 or 70 years until they decide to come out of captivity and we can keep going 70 years until they decide to come out of captivity and we can keep going. He was actively doing things that most of the people that were in the scene at the time could not see. So there is a time and a season for stillness. We think about the seasons. There's the winter that we've talked about before, where there is a time where things need to be dormant. But even in the dormancy it's not a lack of activity. So it is learning to lean into Him and trust and learn more of Him and who. We are in Him in those seasons.
Speaker 2:So, elizabeth, let's talk for a minute about and wrestle with this, so we can also encourage others. What do you think, what do we think it actually looks like to partner with God in this kind of season?
Speaker 1:Well, the first thing I have to tell myself I think even more than anyone else is that I've got to learn to embrace the quiet and the stillness. When I find myself in a season where it feels like God is not being very active, or I cannot hear Him very clearly being very active, or is I cannot hear him very clearly, my first reaction is how do I get out of this? Like, what is the quickest exit to go from stillness and quiet to getting back to how I want my relationship or how I want the circumstance to be handled? It's instead of resisting the silence, it's an invitation to embrace it and go. Okay, I'm okay with the silence.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of times in our culture we're not okay with silence. If a group of people are all sitting in a room together and no one's talking, people think it feels awkward. So how do I learn to embrace the silence and just be honest about where I am, but also be okay if God doesn't fix it immediately, and that requires patience, which is not my favorite word. Trust and like all the fruits of the spirit that we talked about in our podcast series about a year ago, are required here and again. The great thing is that doesn't come from us either. That comes from us leaning into him, and I think it's okay just to come to him and say I need you, but I don't feel like you're here with me. He's not insulted by that. I think he actually welcomes that. And what do we need to do to embrace the stillness that we find ourselves in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that while we are embracing that stillness and while we are embracing the quiet, we also need to stay rooted in the truth of Scripture and in the truth of who God is.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think we need to read Scripture slowly. We need to ask God what are you saying about who you are in this passage and who am I in you? Those are the things we talk about regularly. So staying grounded in the truth of who God is as the source of our faith and strength is really important. So in Isaiah 40, the 28 verses before you get to verse 29 are all about the bigness of who God is.
Speaker 2:So if you listen to Isaiah 40, 27 and 28, it says why do you complain, jacob? Why do you say Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord, my cause is disregarded by my God. 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. So if we can just remember the bigness of God, all that scripture says about him, recall to mind who he is, use, I mean, my favorite resource when we talk about this is that revealing the treasures. Like we look at it, on one half of it it talks about who is God. It's scripture after scripture after scripture about the truth of God. If we are not grounded in that scripture and connected, like you said, to who he is and being with him in that waiting and stillness, then we're really gonna struggle to get through these seasons.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then I think another good reminder is God gives you grace for today. I know in my life this last season as we were caring for my dad, and even now as I'm thinking about the rest of my mom's life it is easy to get overwhelmed if you start thinking about all the things that might be coming. I have another family member right now who is dealing with someone who's dying and I have to keep reminding them. We can't think about the next two weeks. Even we can think okay for today.
Speaker 1:What do we need to do today? Because it can get overwhelming really quick when you're in these big, hard places where you already feel weary, where you're already depleted, if you think about what might be coming. God didn't give you the grace for all of that. He gives you the grace for today. So that's why I love that we wrote Strength to Equal your Days as a 365-day devotional, because we're not trying to tell you everything you need to know for all the strength for all of your days all at one time, but it's bit by bit. Okay for today, god, I'm in this situation, we're facing this really hard thing, or, god, it's just normal life, but I'm exhausted and I am worn out from just the day-to-day things that are going on. What is your grace for me today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I would say lastly, how do we really hang on in a season like this? It's to remember that hidden is not forgotten.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 2:God sees your process. He's in it with you. Nothing is wasted when it's in his hands. We often talk about the moon being round.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:When the moon is hidden, it's still there.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So the hidden is not forgotten.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so for some of us today, what we need to hold on to is you are not forgotten. And it may be hard and it may be difficult and the days ahead may be dark, but, just as we talked about last week in the Psalm 23, he walks with us through the dark valley. He doesn't just say go through this valley and I'll be waiting for you on the other side. So I hope all of us can be encouraged today that we're not forgotten and he is far more active in our lives than we could ever begin to understand.
Speaker 2:As you reflect on this conversation today, maybe you need to offer your own prayer to God, something like God I give you this place of weakness. Teach me to wait well, strengthen me with what I cannot see. It's a simple prayer that you could offer to God, based on what we've talked about. He will give you strength to equal your days, but we don't feel that in the moment of the weakness. So, god, I give you this place of weakness. God, we offer to you the places of weakness and tiredness and all of the places of longing and wanting that we have, where we feel like we're just lacking and we're just waiting and we're wondering God, would you teach us to wait? Well, god, would you strengthen us with what we cannot see? God, give us faith and trust that you are working to grow our roots deep, and may your work produce in us a faith that is unshakable. We look forward to being with you next time.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you for listening to the Father's Business Podcast. This podcast is made possible through donations by people like you. To donate, go to wwwTheFathersBusinesscom. Be sure to follow us at the Father's Biz on Instagram and Facebook.
