Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work.

I'm Tanya Wilmuth.

Does something that won't happen for another 80,000 years matter to you?

That was the question I found myself turning over in my head while

we were on vacation last week. We were out on the Pacific Ocean. We were staring up at what's

called the Nepali coast. It's on the north shore of Kauai. And our boat captain started explaining

the geology of the Hawaiian Islands. So pretty fascinating. There are not just eight islands, the ones that we see and have named on our little globes. There are a lot of the Hawaiian Islands. So pretty fascinating. There are not just eight islands,

the ones that we see and have named on our little globes. There are actually 137.

Most of them, he explained, barely exist above sea level at this point. The islands are slowly

migrating northwest toward Japan at a rate of about four inches per year.

And as they drift, they move off the volcanic hotspot that once fed them.

Without that source, the wind and the waves take over, erosion takes over, and they lose ground.

Now, our finite minds struggle with that kind of time.

80,000 years from now, the island we were on is going to be gone. But that seems too distant to feel relevant. But seeing those cliffs rise out of the ocean,

I felt different. I felt less significant. Like the world will go on and on and on without me.

Isaiah hits on this tension with beautiful language.

The prophet asks, who else has held the oceans in his hands?

Who has measured off the heavens with his fingers?

Who else knows the weight of the earth?

Or has weighed the mountains and hills on a scale?

This is figurative language, yes, but also true. The Lord knows his creation, the way we know, the roads

that take us home, trails, that carry us to our favorite lookouts, the path from our bed to the

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