After yesterday’s stunning prediction from Isaiah 52.13 – 53.12 of the Suffering Servant who “bore the sin of many,” we change gears. Isaiah 54 contains promises the Lord has used in my life from my first introduction to The Navigators back in 1967.

I’ll never forget Skip Gray’s sermon from Isaiah 54.2, 3:

Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities. (Isaiah 54.2, 3, ESV)

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago from Isaiah 43, Dawson Trotman, founder of The Navigators, believed in “claiming promises.” A Navigator Core Value today is:

Persevering faith and believing prayer rooted in the promises of God.

Using Isaiah 54.2, 3, Skip challenged us first to lay a firm foundation (“lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes”). That’s why I teach over and over the importance of daily time with God (and I have to teach it to myself!). Then we expect God to bless our ministry of investing in people: “You will spread abroad…and your offspring will possess the nations…”

There’s more! In 2000, I was invited to join the staff of a large church in Alabama (we were living in Colorado at the time) as Minister of Discipleship. “Just come and do that Navigator ministry you did when you were here in the early 1980s.” My first thought was “This sounds like an opportunity for spectacular failure!”

That’s not like me. I’m a “can-do” sort of guy. Right after I thought that, I read Isaiah 54, and right after the verses above is this one:

Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated… (Isaiah 54.4, NIV)

There is was. A direct word. So we went. It’s now 26 years later. We stayed in Alabama for five years, per our agreement with the church, and did some good ministry there. It laid the foundation for our coming back to Colorado and going full-time with The Navigators.

And as I read today, I have to ask myself, Do I need to revisit these promises? “Do not hold back. Lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes…” Am I winding down at age 79 or is it time to be more like Caleb who told Joshua:

Now then, just as the LORD promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this mountain that the LORD promised me that day…

What should I be doing TODAY that could result in “spectacular failure” but that God’s promise of “Do not fear disgrace…” holds? Today I noticed verse 6:

“For the LORD has called you…”

I don’t know where this is going. Stay tuned, and I’ll keep you updated.