Isaiah 40:28-31

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. ²⁹ He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. ³⁰ Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; ³¹ but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

In these verses, the prophet Isaiah is reminding the people of Israel about the greatness of God. That greatness of God is displayed through the way he loves us and cares for us each day. As times gets tough, we can remember the words of Isaiah as he points out that God is our hope, our fuel, and our strength. If we are honest, our life is full of ups and downs, full of good times and bad. We are going to have days where everything is going great and days where everything is going wrong. We are going to have days when we are well rested and days where we are just plain exhausted. But every day we need God’s help. And the good thing is that He is always there to help us.

You may not believe it, but a couple of years ago, I ran a marathon; a grueling 26.2 miles without stopping. And it was physically one of the hardest things I have ever done. But you see, I trained a whole year to run this thing. My best friend was training with me, and we would share our times with each other to make sure that we were still preparing well. Before long I passed his times and kept getting faster and faster. But in all of my training, one thing I never did was run 26.2 miles. I ran close but the training regimen I was on had us running long distances but only running the marathon on the day of the marathon. While I crushed every run in training the day came for me to run the whole thing, and I most certainly did not crush it, I survived it. It started off great, I was running a great pace and feeling good. There was a half marathon that started 30 minutes before us, and I even caught up to them before they finished. At the halfway mark, after running 13.1 miles I was feeling great. To quote Captain America, I could do this all day. Miles came and went, and I was feeling great, until mile 24 came. You see in my training I would eat these energy chews or gels to help fuel my runs. They helped a lot. When I got tired, I would eat one and be good to go. But on race day I felt great and didn’t even need them. Or so I thought. Mile 24 came, and my body started to shut down, my heart rate skyrocketed, and I thought to myself I cannot finish this race. I couldn’t get my heartrate down, my legs were aching, and I was exhausted. The worst part about it is that I still had a mile in a half to go. Thankfully someone came by and helped encourage me to keep going. I somehow managed to shuffle my feet forward until I finally made it to a medic tent where they were handing out Gatorade, and by the grace of God these energy chews. I downed them and it gave me the fuel needed to keep going. I made it to the finish line after what felt like forever and was greeted with a feast. All the pizza, donuts, and fruit that you could eat. By the time my friend finished I was fueled up and ready to go. Before and after the race I thought I was invincible, I thought I could do it all. But during the race I was humbled and completely exhausted.

This is the same reality we face in life. We need God’s help. We are going to face times where we are tired and exhausted, and God can give us strength. We are going to face times where everything seems to be going wrong and we feel hopeless; God is there to give us hope. When we are at our weakest, may we turn to God for help. When we are at our strongest may we turn to God for help. Each and every day may we turn to God for help. He is our fuel and strength. He is there in the good times and the bad; may we turn to him for help each and every day.

As always, if you have any question about your faith or how to have a relationship with Jesus, I would love to talk with you about it!

-Coach Nick