Waiting with Strength Renewed

"But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." Isaiah 40:31

Introduction

One of the most beloved promises in the Bible, Isaiah 40:31 could very well also be one of the least-claimed. Most people don't like waiting, and, for some, waiting too long for anything brings out their true colors. Most of us think of waiting as a waste of time because it often is a waste of time. Perhaps it's a matter of control: waiting makes us feel helpless, powerless, sometimes even clueless. But if we understood waiting upon the Lord to be fundamentally different from waiting for something or waiting on someone, we would realize that this type of waiting actually produces, rather than taxes, strength.

The Lord upon Whom We Wait

The context of this promise is thrilling. Isaiah 40 contains some of the most exhilarating imagery in the entire Bible: the Lord exalts every valley and makes every hill and mountain low; He makes the crooked places straight and the rough places plain; He withers the grass but makes His Word stand forever; He feeds His flock like a Shepherd and carries the lambs in His arms; He measures the waters of the earth in the hollow of His hand; He metes out heaven with the span; He deposits the dust of the earth in a measuring cup; He stretches out the heavens as a curtain; He sits upon the circle of the earth and watches the people like grasshoppers; He brings out the starry host by number and calls each star by its name; and He defies comparison with any other god. That is the God who calls out to us to renew our strength! What a challenge!

At the close of this chapter, after cataloguing one supernatural vignette after another, Isaiah quotes the Lord asking these rhetorical questions of His people Israel: "Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of His understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint" (Isaiah 40:28-31).

The Wait

While the promise of renewed strength contains the obvious prerequisite of waiting upon the Lord, what this waiting entails requires conceptual adjustment. Some people have circulated the myth that the eagle must smash its beak and pull out its talons and feathers at some critical point of its life--but how, with no beak?--and wait for these to regrow in order to live another 30 years. I suppose this is the proverbial "bald" eagle. But this is a fable not only for the eagle but for us. Like the eagle, we cannot renew our own strength. We must wait upon the Lord for it. But how?

Waiting

Although the Lord commands us to wait upon Him for renewal, Isaiah doesn't explain how to do it because the "how" is actually a "what." The Hebrew word for "wait upon" in itself tells us what we need to do: qavah means to twist or to cling, as of rope fibers being intertwined or braided together to make them stronger. As we weave our souls around our Creator, we become stronger through His strength. Franklin D. Roosevelt's saying, "When you come to the end of your rope, tie a prayer knot and hang on!" doesn't just make a cute poster; it's a promise for renewed strength straight from the Lord. Like the boys who ring the Bells of St. Clement's, we throw our whole body weight upon the rope and swing. But where do we find the rope?

Isaiah points the way in Isaiah 6. In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah entered the Temple disoriented and grieving, looking for a lifeline back to stability and hope. Instead, he fell apart undone in a crisis of vision and confession. There, he suddenly sees the Lord sitting upon His throne, high and lifted up, "and his train filled the temple": His glory cannot be contained. The seraphim cover their faces and cry antiphonally, "Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory" (Isaiah 6:3). Isaiah is dismayed by this vison of God's holiness and cries out, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts" (Isaiah 6:5). "Undone," or nidmetî in Hebrew, means both "ruined" and "silenced." As Isaiah confesses the iniquity of his own mouth and of the people among whom he lives, one of the seraphim flies to him with a live coal from the altar and lays it on his mouth, saying his iniquity is taken away and his sin purged (Isaiah 6:7). Isaiah's crisis of vision did not bring a sense of well-being; it necessitated a crisis of conviction, contrition, and cleansing.

And now he hears God's call: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" (Isaiah 6:8a). Without hesitation, the newly purged Isaiah responds: "Here am I; send me" (Isaiah 6:8b). His entire life has been reoriented during this vesper visit to the Temple. And now, the fact that his commitment follows God's call but precedes God's commission testifies to his total abandonment to the Lord. God indeed commissions His servant that day to fulfill a dreaded and difficult task: "Go, and tell this people." Isaiah becomes a prophet of hope and doom to an idolatrous people who will not listen. After a period of over 40 years of faithful prophesying, he even meets the grisly death of being sawn in two, a martyrdom to which Hebrews 11:37 alludes. Isaiah entered the Temple that day, having lost his way, but he found his soul cabled fast to the one true King. And with what richness does he foretell the excruciating suffering of the coming Messiah on our behalf!

The Strength

The strength the Lord promises to those who wait upon Him at first appears counterintuitive in sequence--soaring, running, and walking--as if decelerating the Psalmist's journey "from strength to strength" in Psalm 84:7. In actuality, however, this sequence speaks to a renewal of strength that is not only continuous but progressive over a lifetime. Each of the three phases builds to depict both quantitative ("increase") and qualitative ("renew") strength unnatural not only to age but even to youth. The ironic result is that walking, which seems the easiest physically, is actually the most difficult spiritually and even results in the youth "falling" who depends solely on strength of his own. But to the one who waits on Him, the same Lord who "faints not" and "neither is weary" gives might and increases strength (Isaiah 40:28-29). Without question, "they that wait upon the LORD shall [not merely increase but shall] renew their strength" (Isaiah 40:30-31).

Not only is the waiting soul indebtedly bound to divine strength; it becomes inseparable from it. Paul could write, "For to me to live is Christ" (Philippians 1:21), for he had learned through sustained suffering in Christ that "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness" (II Corinthians 12:9). He did not merely receive "renewed" strength; he participated in its increase through the Holy Spirit's sustaining in the very act of waiting upon the Lord. This is why "they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength"--subject-verb: they shall renew. To wait upon the Lord in qavah fashion is to intertwine the fibers of His strength into our very souls.

Mounting Up: Soaring with Strength Renewed

"They shall mount up with wings as eagles" (Isaiah 40:31), We are the eagle, and we now have wings. Phase one of the renewed strength clearly sounds the most dramatic and dynamic and even seems to dismiss the wait. But the wait not only promises strength, it points the eagle to the wind. Free to look down upon all its foes, the eagle takes its flight from the altar of consecration. Rising, flying, soaring in celebration of victory won, the eagle climbs the rugged heights and claims the coming storm. The elation and exuberance of new hope give a conqueror's strength to the soul renewed in God.

Mounting up

This most noble of birds rightly epitomizes the spirit of our great 250-year-old nation in its natural power, freedom, solitude, strength, ferocity, and intelligence. The great British Victorian poet, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, captures the majesty of the eagle's swift power in his poem, "The Eagle":

The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

What does the Lord promise us by saying we shall mount up "with wings as eagles? Consider the strength and power of an eagle's wings. With a wingspan of anywhere from 5.5 to over 8 feet, the eagle can fly as high as 15,000 feet, sometimes even above the storm. Using the wind as the source of its power, the eagle can fly for many hours, sometimes as far as 125 miles in one day. Its ability to glide for long distances keeps the eagle from flapping its wings, also conserving strength. From this high altitude, the eagle can see its prey, perhaps a squirrel, from up to three miles away, possessing 20/5 vision. As an apex predator, the eagle can crush its prey by exerting from 400 to over 800 pounds of pressure per square inch. Eagles are also highly intelligent and can recognize faces, solve puzzles, learn from experience, use cunning and foresight, and maintain a sharp memory. The mental strength of an eagle, in combination with physical strength, power, and endurance, grants it unique superiority among God's Creation. With a lifespan of 20 to 30 years, the eagle earns its place in David's Psalm 103 in comparison with the "blessed" of the Lord, "whose youth is renewed like the eagle's" (Psalm 103:5).

Landing: Running with Strength Sustained

Landing

Even eagles have to land, but eagles are not good at running. In this, the one who waits upon the Lord to renew his strength is stronger than not only a young man but than an eagle, for he shall "run and not be weary" (Isaiah 40:31). This fact alone proves that the transition from soaring to running is not a deceleration. How does the runner sustain his strength after soaring in the ecstasy of hope reborn? From wings to feet he now trains his way in new energy and spiritual education. He does not run with uncertainty (I Corinthians 9:26) or subjectivity but with new focus and new patience--having learned this patience, no doubt, while waiting.

This transition from exuberance renewed to energy sustained requires not an emotional high but a logical landing. While the heart renewed sees its destination clearly from the height of new perspective, the runner must look straight before him with a vow of patience newly begun--"looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith" (Hebrews 12:2). To win the race, he lightens his load and casts aside the former things that dragged him down.

Running

Like the eagle, it is easy to stumble when running, but we have the promise that the Lord upholds us with His hand (Psalm 37:24). And, unlike the eagle, we are empowered not to grow weary in this race, for in well doing, we will reap our reward (Galatians 6:9). But we have to keep recharging to run in such a way as to win the prize (I Corinthians 9:24). And, best of all, we can outrun our failures in the energy of our renewed strength. The Apostle Paul reminds us that it is pointless to dwell on the past but that we should forget those things that are behind us and strain towards what is ahead, pressing on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called us in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14). It isn't only the strength we mount up with, it's building the legs to keep going that counts.

Landing: Walking with Strength Conserved

Eagle walking

"And they shall walk, and not faint." Eagles are built for soaring, not running, and they are downright clumsy at walking. They waddle with a rolling motion that makes them almost laughable. But not the one who waits upon the Lord. He will walk with strength and grace.

The elation of hope renewed that settled into the energy of strength sustained ultimately requires the endurance of walking with strength conserved. More than any metaphor, walking describes the true nature of the Christian life--more than soaring or running and certainly more than sitting. If the first phase of renewed strength is emotional and the second, mental, this phase above all is volitional as indebted to a will trained in Christ. This is the walk of spiritual formation and spiritual discipline. This willpower shows up best in maintaining our quiet time with the Lord so that we can conserve yet also regenerate our strength as needed.

Unlike the eagle that can walk only short distances, we face an entire journey home, but, like the eagle, we meet vicious enemies on the ground that we do not meet when soaring. We must learn to recognize these enemies and spot them three miles away. The writer of Psalm 1 tells us who these enemies of walking are. He commands us to walk not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor to stand in the way of sinners, nor to sit in the seat of the scornful. A worldly mindset, questionable companions, and compromising positions weaken and destroy the soul. But if we just keep walking with Jesus, we will not only avoid floundering with the world, we will remain true to the eagle's vision and mount up once again in the Lord's sustaining wind.

Conclusion

The eagle would appear to soar on its own wings, but not only is it the Lord's wind that makes those wings soar, the Lord Himself is the Eagle carrying the eagle. The Lord said to Moses in the wilderness, after His people found new hope from slavery and first tried their wings, "Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself" (Exodus 19:4). The Lord reinforces this imagery in Deuteronomy 33:27, saying to His people, "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." The progression from wings to feet--from soaring to running to walking--is the perfect picture of reality, of which Isaiah himself was an example. Perspective, purity, perseverance; exuberance, energy, endurance--it's all there, but we have to wait for it. We have to obey what the Lord told His disciples before He ascended: to tarry in Jerusalem until they be endued with power from on high (Luke 24:49). Isaiah and the disciples obeyed their commission. What is ours?

I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself" (Exodus 19:4).