Isaiah 30, Revisited

I didn’t find Seven Days in Utopia. It found me.

I’ve always loved Robert Duvall. A recent tribute I posted on Facebook sparked friends to comment with their favorite films. One movie was mentioned that I hadn’t even heard of. How did I miss it? Maybe because I needed it more right now than I did in 2011.

The opening scene carried my life verse across the screen — Isaiah 30:20–21 — the same passage I wrote in my Bible in 2003, when I was young and certain the Lord was speaking directly into my bones. It was the very first thing I ever documented from the Lord.

“Though the Lord give you the bread of privation and the water of affliction… your Teacher will not hide Himself.” Back then, I had no clue truly what that meant. But today, I feel like the first part is the problem and the second part is the reward. And I understand they go together just like R.C. and moonpies.

There are seasons when life tastes like scarcity. Seasons when effort feels underwater. Seasons when you swing harder and only make a bigger splash and get dirty in the process.

In the movie, the young golfer has a meltdown. He is pushed by perfection, shaped by expectation, and worn thin by pressure. He tries to muscle a shot out of murky water and ends up soaked and exhausted. I felt that. Not because I play golf. But because I know what it’s like to tighten when things get heavy.

When finances wobble, I tighten. When I stumble, I tighten. When I know better and still miss it, I tighten.

I am generous with grace for other people. I built a ministry around it once. I can see potential in anyone. I can remind them that God wastes nothing. But when it comes to myself? I hold a different standard. One mistake can feel like it erases ten faithful steps. One failure can sound like a verdict instead of a lesson. And that’s where the verse meets me now. “Though the Lord give you the bread of privation…” Privation means lack. Scarcity. Being fed something you didn’t ask for. But it doesn’t say the Teacher disappears in that season. It says your eyes will see Him. Your ears will hear, “This is the way. Walk in it.”

Underwater seasons distort vision. You fixate on the distraction in the field and miss the bull standing in front of you that you’re about to crash into. You try to fix things by force instead of by guidance.

What struck me most in the film wasn’t the lesson about golf mechanics. It was the shift in posture. The mentor stays steady ~ deliberate, precise, patient. But the father changes. He stops managing and controlling and starts believing. He loosens his grips and trusts the man his son is becoming.

And somewhere in that shift, I realized something about myself: I extend grace outward with ease. I struggle to receive it inward. If a friend made the same mistakes I have made, I would never call her a hypocrite. I would remind her she is still growing, and that missteps do not cancel out a faithful life. Yet I rarely offer myself the same tenderness.

Maybe that’s part of the lesson in privation. Scarcity exposes where we still believe performance equals worth. Affliction reveals whether we trust the Teacher to guide us or whether we try to muscle our way out of murky water. Sometimes people will say, “Well, maybe you just don’t have enough faith.” I know it’s rarely meant to wound, but when you’re already struggling, it can feel judgmental and painful, lending more proof to your feeling of failure. It’s as if you’re somehow disqualified from God’s help because you’re not enough.

For me, it’s not lack of faith in God. It’s that I feel I don’t deserve, so I don’t ask, and I don’t receive... even if it’s being offered. I won’t take it. I turn around because of shame, guilt, fear. But it’s never lack of faith. I know God can do all things. I know God will do what He says. My faith in Him is strong. It’s the faith in me I struggle so hard with.

In the film, Johnny calls it SFT — See it. Feel it. Trust it. See the shot. Feel the rhythm. Trust the swing. But Isaiah said it long before a golf course ever did. “Your ears will hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way. Walk in it.’” The bread of privation may still be on the table. The water of affliction may still be what I’m drinking. But my Teacher is not hiding. He began a good work in me, and He is not finished.

So I don’t see Isaiah 30 as a warning. I see it as assurance. Even when I am learning the hard way, swinging hard. Even when I am tightening instead of releasing. Even when I feel underwater. My Teacher is not hiding. And if He is willing to guide me step by step — left or right — then maybe the real growth isn’t in swinging harder. Maybe it’s simply in listening.

If you’re tightening too, maybe it’s time to stop swinging and start listening. And if you’re like me, maybe even learn how to step into foreign territory... and receive.