Isaiah 40:28 Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the Lord,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives POWER to the weak,
And to those who have no might He increases STRENGTH
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall,
31 But those who WAIT on the Lord
Shall renew their STRENGTH;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.
I have learned one thing at this point in my life. If God says sit down and be still, there is no amount of movement that is going to change anything. So if God has told me to be still, no matter who tells me to move, I’m not budging.
I encountered someone last week who was pushing me to move according to their timeline on the vision that God gave to me. They got very upset that I wasn’t moving faster, because they were excited and wanted to barrel ahead. I explained that God told me that I could expend my energy endlessly with no results, or I could sit still and see the salvation of the Lord. I told them that I had commited to waiting upon the Lord and not trying to make it happen in my own strength. They didn’t like my answer, telling me basically that I must be too busy to forge ahead on my vision.
So this week, God directed me to study the word “wait” in Isaiah 40:31. It comes from the Hebrew word “qavah”, which literally means to bind together like twisting cords together to make a strong rope. Although “wait” has been interpreted figuratively as expectantly hoping in God, it literally means being interwoven with Him so that we become one. We, the weak thread, are entwined with Him, the strong, unbreakable cord, and therefore, when He moves and we move with Him, we have His unlimited strength in our lives.
However, when we disentangle ourselves from the main Cord, we go back to being a fragile thread with no strength of our own. We stretch and break because we are not built to handle the struggles of life alone. We have a bad habit of then trying to intertwine ourselves with another fragile thread (another person), and we only stretch each other to the breaking point while expecting the other to make us strong.
Our only hope is to remain intertwined with Him, and only move when He moves with His power flowing through us. We must disentangle ourselves from the desires, will and opinions of others and become so wrapped up in the Lord that we cannot tell where we stop and He begins.
If you need strength, then you need to focus on becoming more entwined with the Lord in every area of your life. Wrap your mind, will and emotions around His Word and the presence of His Spirit. Move in the ways and at the times of God’s choosing, not your or others’ choosing. Wait upon the Lord and you will rise up as never before.
QUESTION FOR THE DAY:
- In what area of your life are you tempted to run ahead of God’s leading, direction and provision? Where are you tempted to make a way for yourself instead of God making the way?
- How can you practically “wait” upon the Lord? How can you keep yourself entwined with Him to receive His strength for your life?