Daily Manna · Day 264 · September 21
Waiting Renews Strength
“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 is speaking to God's people in exile in Babylon, and they feel forgotten. They have started saying out loud, "My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God."
The promise in verse thirty-one answers that complaint. The word "wait" there does not mean sitting still. The Hebrew word is related to the word for a cord or a line, and it carries the picture of a rope pulled tight, of hanging on under a heavy load. Then look at the order of the promise, because it runs the opposite way from a speech. First "they shall mount up with wings as eagles," then they run, and then they walk. Anyone building to a big finish would end with the eagle. Isaiah ends with walking and not fainting, because that is what they needed for the long road ahead, and most days it is what we need too.
So we can pray like this: Lord, I asked to be lifted up, and I have not been lifted. I have been reading that as a no. Teach me to ask for the third thing in the promise. Give me strength to walk into the same hospital ward, the same house and the same job, and not faint there. Renew what is used up in me, at the pace You choose. Hold me in the waiting.
God kept this promise. His people did go home from Babylon, along a long road taken one stretch at a time. Years later, Ezra's company made the same journey, and it took them four months. There are no wings anywhere in that story, but there was strength to walk, and the same God gives that strength to you.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 264 is Draw Nigh (James 4:8).