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“Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.” – Isaiah 40:31
I’ve been taking a powdered supplement most days in the morning to prevent the sleepies in the afternoon. I can say this after six months of taking it, however: it doesn’t always work. Some days, I stay peppy, and other days, I still nod off all afternoon.
In fairness to the supplement, all it does is open blood vessels for a 4-6 hour period. It doesn’t promise that I will stay wide awake after every use. It is, after all, a supplement. It is meant to come alongside other strategies in the prevention of the sleepies. If I was more diligent with the kinds of food I eat (and what time of day I eat them), that would help. If I had a more consistent physical activity schedule, that also would help.
That is what I read in the verse above. We used to sing this verse as a song back in the day, and as a kid, I heard the promise of God to renew my strength in such a way that I would never get tired. All I had to do was “wait on Him,” whatever that meant. But it’s clear that I get tired all the time (as do all of you). And as I get older, the tired phenomenon only increases in frequency and duration. Does that mean I have stopped waiting on God?
If you read a verse like this as a hard promise, you too might become disappointed. Isaiah didn’t write this to hand out a formula for strength to all people. He wanted to hand out encouragement from God to a very weary people. He wanted them to see the correlation between trusting in and following God as a way of being able to make it through hard times.
Poetry in the Bible is hard to handle. Some places, we are supposed to read the text in a more literal fashion and in other places, we are to read the figurative language provided. It’s not always easy to know when you’re dealing with a hard promise or a “sometimes only” promise.
What you can take from this verse with absolute certainty, is that you are always better off waiting upon the Lord. Trusting Him. Not rushing to fix problems on your own without Him. Focus on Him. Pray to Him. Read His words. Seek counsel before rushing into something. Wait.
I used to do copywriting for Pastor Tony Evans. One illustration he taught frequently was that waiting on God was not like waiting on the bus. When you sit at a bus stop, you might have a book to read or a podcast to listen to, but generally, waiting on the bus to come is a truly passive event. But waiting on God sometimes is a lifelong process. It’s not passive. There is much to do while you wait on Him. And in that active waiting, God gives you what you need to make it through and to overcome.
I encourage you to implement a life of God-waiting. It’s not sitting around and waiting for pennies to fall from heaven; it’s a life of development and experiences where He will not only renew your strength from hardship to hardship, but He will make you into the person He intends for you to be.