Timeless (Friday Devotional)

“The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.”

- Isaiah 40:7-8

Driving around my hometown is weird for me nowadays. In some places, it’s as though nothing has changed since I moved to Waco—the façade of my high school looks exactly like it did when I graduated 9 years ago, the bushes in my parents’ front yard are right where they always were, and the Sonic where I bought dozens (hundreds?) of Dr Peppers is right where I left it. In some spots, it’s like time has stood still.

But then, without warning, I’ll drive past a strip mall and see three new businesses, or onto a road that’s added two lanes since I last used it, or through a neighborhood development that used to just be an empty field. In these moments my hometown reveals itself to be, at least in some ways, a different place than the version I left in 2008. Just as I have changed since then, so too has the city where I was raised—for though my memory remains frozen in time, reality has moved on.

On my nostalgic drives though my hometown, its changes are jarring. That’s because as a general rule, people are uncomfortable with changes outside our control. We want things to remain as they are; we want a stable equilibrium that we can understand and manage. In a world that sometimes seems to be in constant state of flux, we long for something that remains steady and unchanging.

That is just one way in which God blesses us: “the grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.” For all the mixed messages that the world puts out, God’s message remains true, a foundation we can build our lives upon. Whether it comes to us through the written word of Scripture, the gentle sighing of the Spirit, or the teachings and example of the Word made flesh, God’s word remains an eternal source of comfort, strength, wisdom, and power.

There are a million things to which you can devote your time, attention, and energy, from work to family to entertainment to the day’s headlines. But each of these, if you make them your foundation, will crack and crumble with time. Only the word of the Lord will endure when they fade and wither like the flowers of the field. So may you place your faith in a message that is truly timeless.