Waiting: the Golden Key to God’s Strength – Brad Jersak
A Word for the Weary:
You know that feeling of weariness, where you’ve “hit the wall” or “run out of steam,” or whatever metaphor describes a physical, emotional, or spiritual energy drain? The first time I noticed this in myself and felt alarmed was the day in 1972 when I decided to sprint all the way home from school… and found myself winded in the space of less than a block. “What’s wrong with me?” I wondered. And, “Am I the only one?” I may have been seven years old at the time, but I knew what “winded” meant and what trudging home involved. That feeling has long been my unwelcome but familiar companion.
The Scriptures address weariness in various ways, especially Jesus’ welcome to all who are weary… he promises REST for those who are carrying heavy burdens. He tells us it’s safe to bring our weariness to him because he is gentle and humble of heart and has no intention of wringing us out even further.
Renewing Our Strength:
But through the prophet Isaiah, God offers more than just rest for our tired bones or consolation to our weary hearts. Isaiah 40 includes the hope of renewed strength. And not just, “Hang in there; you’ll get through this,” which is sometimes the best we can offer. He goes further, “You will become strong again.” How strong? “As strong as a soaring eagle!” I love that image… It’s so much better than a chicken flapping around “with its head cut off.” A gruesome image, according to my wife, who grew up on a chicken farm! Gruesome but not unfamiliar. When I’m weary, it’s often because I’ve been flapping rather than soaring.
On Sunday, I found myself reminiscing about how Sunday afternoons in my childhood involved a family drive. We’d jump in the car, and Dad would just drive us out into the country. Maybe there’d be a picnic or some sightseeing, but no heavy agenda. I miss that… so I did it. I took a 30-minute drive toward the mountains near where I live. The snow-capped mountains shone in the sunlight, and above me, I enjoyed watching three bald eagles soaring eastward… strong but relaxed. They accompanied me to a gathering where my friend, Lorie, was speaking on, of all things, Isaiah 40:31!
Waiting On God (Not Waiting for God):
Lorie spoke about the “golden key” to renewing our strength: waiting on God. What struck me was the word study she did on “WAITING” in that passage, and I began to see how “waiting on” is a lot different than “waiting for.” Lorie explained that the Hebrew word for “wait” here is a LOT different than imagining God is absent and we are waiting for an absent God to arrive.
Instead, the imagery of that word includes the idea of “twisting together” (like a rope) or “binding” (tied together) so that whatever we’re waiting for (whether renewed strength or deliverance from troubles), waiting on the Lord is also waiting with the Lord. Said another way, we are united with God, and that’s how strength comes. We are bound together with Christ, and that’s how deliverance comes. Lorie had us imagine ourselves twisted together with the Trinity like strands of a rope.
My father-in-law worked in quality control at a wire rope factory for 40 years. He said that the way wire cables are twisted together for cables on a ski lift or a suspension bridge is far stronger than the giant metal posts and beams that suspend them. So, too, we may be surprised at the endurance and resilience of being wound tight with divine grace, even in our most desperate waiting.
Waiting On the Messiah:
When I realized that “waiting ON God” in Isaiah’s language does not suggest that God is absent but that we wait WITH God FOR God’s act of deliverance, I had an “aha! moment” about an old debate among Jewish rabbis concerning the coming Messiah. Of course, they were waiting FOR the Messiah to come deliver them, but it seemed to trouble some of them. If the Messiah comes, they wondered, then what happens to our waiting? Because waiting is so central to our faith!
That used to make no sense to me… why would they prefer waiting for the arrival of the promised Messiah? But now I think I get their question. If their waiting was not just the absence of God, but a “faith-waiting in the presence of God,” they might have wondered if they would lose the sweetness of their experience of waiting ON God and WITH God once the Messiah came.
As it turns out, Christ-followers can think about it the same way. Yes, we long for the coming of Jesus Christ to heal this broken world. BUT we are not waiting in his absence but in his presence. As Jesus said, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” We await the return of the One who never left! And while we long for deliverance (“Come, Lord Jesus!”), we also enjoy the goodness of his life with and in us as we “wait ON and WITH him.”
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