Waiting, with Strength Renewed

"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

The Wait

One of the most beloved promises in the Bible, Isaiah 40:31 could very well also be one of the least-claimed. In order to mount up with wings as eagles, to run and not be weary, and to walk and not faint, we must wait upon the Lord. Nobody likes waiting, even when we are waiting for something good. In fact, waiting for something good is like waiting for Christmas when you are three years old. Although seemingly interminable, at least that waiting period has a definite timeline and object.

But when we must wait not only an indefinite period but also for an uncertain answer, we face the supreme test of our wills. And this is exactly what waiting upon the Lord entails and proves precisely why so many otherwise spiritual people fail to renew their strength. Far too many of us find ourselves in a wasteland of existential angst, as did Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett's famous atheistic tragicomedy, Waiting for Godot.

Characters without a purpose produce a play without a plot--a play about nothing except the inevitable dissolution of personal identity in a world where God does not exist. And yet Vladimir and Estragon wait for Godot as if he does exist because they have nothing else to do. A world with nothing to do not only swallows them with absurdity; it prevents them from finding the very essence of their existence. But as long as they wait for Godot, they are doing something while doing nothing, while also perhaps obligating Godot to exist at least as long as they wait for him. Such is the absurdity of atheistic existentialism.

Hebrews tells us plainly that he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). This is a most fascinating verse, for the paradox is exquisite: we seek the Lord, confident He will reward our seeking, yet a reward is not what we must seek. We must "seek Him." The Lord Himself is our reward. The reason this promise goes unclaimed by most Christians is the same reason most of us do not find the fulfillment of Isaiah 40:31. We aren't willing to meet the conditions, for we find the Lord only when we come to the end of ourselves.

This is the spiritual power from which Isaiah writes. He was forced to let go of everything the year King Uzziah died. He entered the Temple lost and bewildered, only to find his anchor in the holiness of God. When Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, he also saw himself undone. In Hebrew, "undone," or nidmetî, means both "ruined" and "silenced." This is Jacob, who clings crippled to the Lord while demanding a blessing. This is the true nature of waiting upon the Lord, which Isaiah beautifully captures in the Hebrew word qavah, meaning to twist or to cling, as of rope fibers being intertwined or braided together to make them stronger.

When we wait upon the Lord, His strength not only becomes part of us; the strength He gives us is His own strength--that same strength that holds the whole world in His hands. If we would claim the promise in Isaiah 40:31, we must lay aside our trite misconceptions. Clinging to the Lord is far more intense than tying that little proverbial knot at the end of our rope and hanging on. It means leaping into the arms of Jesus as our rope--a bit like those little boys in times past who bobbed up and down with the ropes ringing the massive bells of St. Clement's.

The Strength

Without a doubt, our God is worth waiting for. Just look at His omnipotence in the breathtaking passage leading to Isaiah 40:31. The one true God not only created the hills and valleys; He renders those hills and valleys navigable when we can't walk another inch. He makes the crooked places straight and the rough places plain. He scoops earth's waters into the hollow of His hand. This magnificent hand not only rules the earth; it also measures infinity with a span--the distance between the thumb and the pinky. Think of it! Our God spreads out the heavens like a curtain and sits on the circle of the earth watching men like grasshoppers. Our God is great indeed. But what is greatness without goodness? Our God not only calls the stars by name; He feeds His flock like a Shepherd, carrying the lambs in His arms. His Word stands forever, as the heavens pass away and grasses fade.

This is the God who renews our strength! "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).

Soaring with Strength Renewed

The Lord's strength is unique, being both qualitative and quantitative. Think about the very images Isaiah uses to illustrate this strength. No human being can mount up with wings like an eagle. This is clearly a qualitative renewal of our strength. "They shall mount up with wings as eagles" (Isaiah 40:31). The great British Victorian poet, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, captures the majesty of the eagle's power in this poem:

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. 

When Isaiah compares our strength to an eagle's, he shows that the Lord's touch is indeed supernatural, exactly as we would expect it to be. Isaiah writes that this strength surpasses that of even young men. But notice the existential element in this acquisition of supernatural strength. As shown by the Hebrew word qavah, we play an active role in renewing our own strength. Notice the subject and verb here: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." They shall renew. Unlike Vladimir and Estragon, the longer we wait, the stronger we become. The exercise of faith builds spiritual muscle.

But just here we need to be careful not to perpetuate a common myth. The story goes that if an eagle wants to live another 30 years, it must pluck out all its feathers, pull out its talons, and smash its beak. But those who believe this tale and who parallel it with the promise in Isaiah 40:31 are missing the fallacy embedded in such a comparison. We cannot self-regenerate, and we are not the author and the finisher of our own renewal. Truth be known, the crises of life that threaten our total demise come on their own without any self-imposed act of supreme denial. And out of these ruins, the Lord Himself brings the strength to mount up with wings like an eagle.

This promise carries a factual magnificence that needs no mythical poetry to sentimentalize its relevance. With a wingspan up to eight feet wide, the eagle can fly 15,000 feet above sea level hour after hour, covering 125 miles in one day. Gliding effortlessly for much of this distance, the eagle conserves its strength for descent, eyeing its prey from three miles away with 20/5 vision. Swooping for the kill, the eagle crushes a squirrel by exerting up to 800 pounds of pressure per square inch. These apex predators are so highly intelligent that they can recognize faces, solve puzzles, and learn from experience. The mental and physical strength of an eagle grants it unique superiority among God's Creation. So will God give strength qualitatively different to the one who finds his strength in Him.

Mounting up

Running with Strength Sustained

While an eagle can glide for miles without tiring--as if actually resting on the wind--it can't run very long without growing weary. Here once again we find a renewed strength qualitatively different even than the strength that enabled us to soar. With a renewed spirit, we not only soar like an eagle; when we come down to earth, we are actually better than an eagle on land. We can run and not grow weary.

Running  

How? Only one thing keeps the runner in the race: "looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith" (Hebrews 12:2). Maintaining a disciplined focus on the Lord means that the rest of the world--especially the weights and sins that so easily burden us--must become a blur by comparison. Choosing not to look on those problems the eagle could see a mile away is a little like not focusing on the intense red light during an eye exam. But why would a long-distance race require a holy disregard of the very things that seem to demand our attention? The very word "race" implies multitasking amid multiple responsibilities that demand equal attention.

Looking ahead makes the runner run straight. My father used to drive a stake into the ground at the opposite end of his garden plot and then make his furrow with that stake in view. Waiting on the Lord means actively focusing on Him when we are so busy we can't see straight. We cry out to Him as burdens pile up and find Him a present help in time of need. We pray as we drive; we sit by the bedside of a dying loved one and pray with every tear. The next morning, we walk into our classroom thinking on our feet because we were up all night with our beloved mother in the cardiac unit. We don't lessen our activity because we can't in a race, but we bathe those activities in total dependence upon the Lord and His promise that "as thy days, so shall thy strength be" (Deuteronomy 33:25).

Walking with Strength Conserved

Eagle walking

"And they shall walk, and not faint." Here we find yet another kind of strength. This strength is both qualitatively different from the eagle's and quantitatively different from the athlete's. If an eagle is clumsy running, it is downright comical walking. It waddles in a rolling motion worse than a drunkard. The one who walks without fainting has a strength the eagle doesn't have.

But the one who walks without fainting has more--not less--strength than the runner because he has the moral fiber to come in last without falling down. These days, we seem to think that falling is normal, but not in God's itinerary. "And not faint" is an incredibly powerful qualifier in this promise. Not only do we have a promise here of not fainting; we see in Scripture that if we do faint, we don't reap the promise of reaping. If we truly realized in the depth of our soul that we have no choice but to keep walking, we would understand why walking is the single-most common metaphor of the Christian life. Most would rather sit down and rock in their granny chair. But the most obvious thing about walking is that it lasts until the end. It isn't a segment of life or even a season; it is life.

The one who waits on the Lord in the dailyness of life finds grace to walk by faith. And this is exactly what faithfulness means. This is the walk that Enoch took home, mounting up in his chariot before he could faint.

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