“And they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31
This is one of my all time favorite scriptures. I know it is a favorite among many. It is quoted, it is painted on plaques, it is worn on t shirts, but it’s really not just a cookie cutter scripture. It is much deeper than first glance may seem. This kind of waiting on the Lord is not a passive waiting as waiting can be. It is not like sitting in line at the drive through, waiting for your order to be ready. This waiting requires something of us. It is a pouring ourselves out to Him and meeting with Him kind of waiting. It is an active kind of waiting. And yes sometimes it’s a long time kind of waiting.
Have you ever had something that you prayed about for a very long time and you wondered if you would ever get the answer? Or if you would get the answer you could live with anyway? I have! I have had situations and circumstances that spanned years and I would be on my knees and in my prayer chair daily and sometimes I would wonder, and maybe I still wonder if and when I will get the answer. Or if the answer will ever come that I can live with. I want to say I’m still here Lord, I’m still waiting. But in this kind of waiting, where I bring those requests to Him every day, I find a new strength that I didn’t know I could have. I find that I can still go to work and put one foot in front of the other. Sometimes it feels as if the heartbreak and the waiting could paralyze me and make me just want to crawl back in my bed and pull the covers over my head. And sometimes that sounds nice. But it’s really not. When we do that, when we retreat, that’s not where the strength will come in.
So how do we get this strength? Some versions of this verse use a different word than wait. Some use hope and trust. This waiting, this hoping, this trusting will give us strength as we actively seek Him and pour out to Him what is on our hearts. We can’t expect Him to just pour into us what we need to make it through every day even with our broken hearts and our worries and our circumstances. We must bring them to Him, pour them out to Him, and then His strength pours into us.
And then….
After we have gone to heavenly places with Him. We mounted up on wings of Eagles and soared to the heavenly places!
We have set our feet to run the race that is set before us, our race, no one else’s. The one that the Lord gave us, this life, this family, these circumstances, whatever they are.
We walk it out. We hold our head up and we go in the strength He gives us to face the day. Yes this says we will walk and not faint. My friends I have had days where I questioned that. Could I really walk out the day without fainting because I was so tired of the stuff I was dealing with? But I can tell you now, looking back that the strength He would give me for days like that was minute by minute. I truly believe the strength to walk it out only came because of the seeking and the pursuing and the clinging to Him that I was doing in my mornings with Him, and keeping the pursuing and the seeking at the forefront of my mind as the day went on.
No this waiting is not a passive waiting. It’s an active waiting. But if you wait like that and you seek Him, He will give you strength. You will soar to heavenly places with Him. You will run the race He’s given you and you will be able to walk out the day.
Restore 