Isaiah

Isaiah 50:10

There are stretches in life when you do everything right and still feel lost. You read your Bible. You pray. You show up on Sunday. And yet the fog stays. The confusion lingers. Some of us are walking through one of those stretches right now, and the hardest part isn’t the darkness itself. It’s wondering whether we did something wrong to end up in it.

Isaiah addresses that very tension. In the middle of a passage about God’s faithful servant, the prophet pauses and asks a pointed question: “Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God” (Isaiah 50:10, ESV).

Notice what Isaiah does here. He describes someone who fears God and obeys. Someone doing the right things. And that same person is walking in darkness. The two are not contradictions. Faithfulness does not always come with clarity. Sometimes we’re doing exactly what God has asked, and the path still feels like driving a back road at midnight with no headlights. That doesn’t mean we’ve wandered off course. It means we’re being asked to trust in a deeper way, the kind that has nothing to hold onto but God Himself.

What helps in those seasons is what Isaiah says a few verses later: “Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you” (Isaiah 51:1–2, ESV). When the road ahead is dim, God tells us to look back. Remember the ones who walked this way before you. Abraham left everything and followed a God he couldn’t see. Sarah waited decades for a promise that made no sense. What they had was a God who kept His word.

We stand in that same line. Every grandmother who prayed through her grief. Every father who kept showing up at church when his heart was heavy. They are quiet proof that this path has been walked before, and that the One who led them through will lead us too.

If that’s where you are today, in the fog, still trying to be faithful, I want you to know something. The darkness is not evidence that God has left. It may be the very place He’s teaching us to rely on Him alone. Not our feelings. Not our circumstances. Just His name and His promises.

So let’s keep walking. The dark will not last, but His faithfulness will.

Read: Isaiah 27-31

Today’s Passage: Isaiah 28:13 (ESV)

Have you ever heard the saying, “The more things change, the more they stay the same”? At first it sounds almost backwards. How can things change and stay the same? But when you look closely at life, you see the truth behind it.

The world around us may look different than it did years ago—our technology has advanced, our schedules are busier, and our challenges seem more complicated—but the human heart hasn’t changed at all. We struggle with the same temptations, wrestle with the same questions, and need the same guidance people needed long before us.

This is one of the major themes in Isaiah 27–31. Israel was changing outwardly, but inwardly they were still drifting from God. The Lord had to use what we might call “tough love” to wake them up. Even so, He never stopped defending them. His discipline was not abandonment—it was a call to return, to trust Him again, and to listen to His word. In that way, not much has changed today. God still calls us back through His word, and He still protects those who turn to Him.

Isaiah 28:13 reminds us that the word of God is not something to take lightly. It is meant to be our most prized possession. No amount of money can compare to what the Scriptures give us. Houses, cars, savings, and all the things we count as valuable cannot bless our lives like the living word of God. Jesus described the heart that receives and understands the word as the one that “bears fruit” (Matt. 13:23). That is still true for us today.

Some people argue that the Bible is outdated, written for another time and another world. But ignoring Scripture doesn’t make it useless. It is like a lost sailor who refuses to use the map in his hand. The problem is not the map—the problem is the refusal to open it. God’s word will guide us, but only if we are willing to read it. As the psalmist writes, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps. 119:105).

Jesus often pointed to children as the model for a faithful heart. Children are open. They are curious. They do not carry the baggage adults tend to carry—baggage of past hurts, disappointments, or distrust. Adults often resist new ideas because we think we already know enough. Children, on the other hand, love to discover new things. If we approached Scripture with that same childlike openness, imagine what God could teach us.

There is always something new to learn in God’s word. And every time we discover truth and put it into practice, our lives change for the better. Our hearts grow softer. Our steps grow steadier. Our faith grows stronger. Jesus said, “Let the children come to me… for to such belongs the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:16). When we come to God’s word with that kind of heart, He shapes us into who we were meant to be.

Central Haywood Church of Christ

Serving God from the mountains of North Carolina

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When the Dark Won’t Lift

THE WORD THAT NEVER GROWS OLD

Isaiah, the Messianic Prophet.