Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What Did God Teach You This Year? | Historical Books | Isaiah 54

Episode Date: December 30, 2025

What did God teach you this year? Through the highs? Through the lows? In today's episode, Tanya shares how Isaiah 54 reminds us that God was faithful this past year, and will be faithful in the year to come. Read the Bible with us in 2026! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Isaiah 54

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. How do you like to mark the end of a year? With resolutions, regrets, relief. If you're listening in real time, it's December 30th. We've made it to the end of another year, another season of TNBT, and the end of Isaiah, which, let's be honest, feels like it could have been its own calendar year. And we've journeyed all the way through the kings and the cycles of judgment.

watching God's people stumble, repent, and stumble again. And more than once we saw ourselves in their struggles. The Bible has been keeping it real with us all year. It doesn't sugarcoat anything or hide the uncomfortable moments. It lets us feel the ache of people who desperately need a Savior, and then helps us recognize that same ache in our own hearts. So now that we're ending one year and stepping into the next, it feels right to keep it real in our own lives too.

I don't do New Year's resolutions. I don't keep them. I do have a few long-running goals, but they're not tied to the calendar. What works for me is looking back pretty regularly at the highs and lows and simply paying attention to what God is teaching me through them. One of my highs this year surprised me. It came from becoming comfortable in my own skin again. See, I spent years being mom, mommy, mama to four kids born within seven years. I did think. carpool volunteering, leading Bible studies that don't exactly translate to resume bullet points. And when I reentered the workforce, I know you've heard me talk about that all year, I didn't know how to talk about those years in a way that sounded valuable. A few rejections made it worse. They made me want to hide that part of my life, at least in the professional world, not in my personal life whatsoever. But then I met a woman who asked me questions that were slowly.

lower and deeper, questions that dug into who I was during those years and what was happening in my life and in my family's life. And she told me that she wished more women had the chance I had. That conversation reframed everything. It helped me realize those years weren't something to downplay professionally, but something that shaped me profoundly. They're a strength. They're part of my story, part of my family's story. Why would I hide something I don't regret? Now, of course, there were lows too. One of them was stepping down from leading my small group this year. Work was demanding.

I was traveling. Motherhood felt full, and I wanted to be home with my kids when I was home. I felt like I was kind of falling short in both categories, so I quit my small group. And I wish I hadn't. I miss those girls. I miss being part of something bigger than me, something that helped shape the spiritual life of my home when they were here. I'm still figuring out what to do about that, but it's definitely one of my lows, and I want it to be something I learn from.

And honestly, there you go. That's as far as my quote New Year's resolutions go. My own experiences, both good and bad, have been the best classroom for my growth. Now, before we move on, let's just pause and pray. Lord, the world has its formulas for success. Resolutions, goals, career plans, but we have the Holy Spirit. You promise to guide, counsel, grow, and be with us. Will you accomplish in us and through us what you desire this year? And give us peace as we walk into a new year as your instruments. Amen. Now, when we turn to Isaiah 54, the tone shifts from reflection and to promise. Isaiah speaks into a world that feels dark and desolate and announces that change is coming.

God's people were living in exile. suffering under their own choices, and Isaiah says they've become like a city that is decayed, so accustomed to a cheapened culture that they hardly notice how far they've drifted from God. Half of the Old Testament deals with exile. Israel was warned, and then they were removed from the land. Yet God never abandoned his covenant. He promised rescue. He promised a Messiah who would bring them home forever.

Seventy years later, groups of Israelites returned to rebuild the temple in the city, but rebuilding structures didn't rebuild their hearts. They still needed a savior. And that's where Isaiah 54 becomes so powerful. It paints a picture of what God will do. A barren woman will one day have a home bursting with life. A woman clothed in shame will be adorned with beauty because the creator himself will be her husband. The grief that sits in the corners of her mind will be swallowed up by compassion and everlasting love. Her children will know the Lord. Her peace will be unshakable. No weapon formed against her will succeed. God himself will stand guard over her future. And the thing is, these promises for Israel, these promises are also for us.

See, the Messiah has already come. We live inside these promises now, even as we wait for their full completion. The world is our home with Jesus. but not our forever home. We can walk in confidence because His presence will never leave us and one day his glory will fully surround us. So let's bring this back to where we started. Pull out your planner, pull up your notes app,

or text this to yourself. Isaiah, chapter 54, 9 through 10. It says, Just as I swore in the time of Noah that I would never again let a flood cover the earth, so now I swear that I will never again be angry and punish you. For the mountains may move and the hills disappear, but even then my faithful love for you will remain. See, I think it would help to put this in our

planner, to put this at the top of our notebooks, to put this at the top of our notes at, because whatever is nagging or tugging at you, whatever feels unresolved or unfinished, you can place it under this promise. God will accomplish in you and through you. you what your good intentions cannot. Even when your efforts look like a mess, he is sovereign over every corner of your life. You may feel dim, but he still uses you as an instrument of light. Your successes can't earn you grace and your failures cannot exile you from his love. Your regrets won't last forever. Before we wrap up today, I want to share one simple story that captures what Isaiah 54 is telling us. During the Watergate scandal, Chuck Colson went from being one of the most

powerful men in Washington to one of the most publicly disgraced. Everything that had defined him, career, reputation, and influence collapsed almost overnight. He ended up in prison, and by every measure, it looked like his story had hit a dead end. But God was doing something different. Because in that low place, when he was stripped of everything he used to lean on, he met Jesus in a new way. His life didn't transform overnight, but slowly and steadily. God rebuilt him from the inside out. And years later, looking back on the season that he once regretted and dreaded and feared most, Colson wrote this. I found myself beginning to be grateful for the very experiences, which I had once most dreaded. Y'all only God can do that. Turn dread into gratitude, turn our failure into our

formation, God's faithful love that remains when everything else falls apart is our guiding post. As you think through your own highs and lows from this year, remember, God isn't waiting for you to be perfect. He rebuilds you. He is rebuilding you right where you are. And some of those places where you wish you could hide under the covers or erase from your memory may become the very places that he uses as your biggest learning opportunities. So what is a good 2026 look like for you? Will you let your highs and lows shape you into someone who experiences God more deeply?