Daily devotion – when weariness comes
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 am finding out and learning about many things in these later years of living. That some things that I used to be able to do with no trouble have now become a little difficult. It’s an amazing period of living and learning.
My mind travelled to Isaiah’s well known words as I was musing over the changes we face each year of ageing. Especially the words, “Even the youths shall faint and be weary.”
Yesterday the players from the Fremantle Football Club all returned to training back from their Christmas break. Waiting for them was a schedule of gruelling 2 km time trials, with repeat after repeat. In addition, a solid number of 200-meter sprints followed by a scratch match and more man-to-man drills. The weather was warm, and the players were exhausted!
To see elite athletes with not an ounce of extra fat, capable of running 12 – 15kms per game out on their feet was a site to behold.
Weariness can hit us all even in our youth let alone our later years. But Isaiah wonderfully reminds us that the Creator of all things, never grows weary or weak!
That He can and will give each of His children strength especially when we experience weariness or become weak. This blessing of strength hope and renewal comes however only to those who “wait on the Lord…”
To wait …..to wait, look for, hope, expect, to linger!
Jesus told us in John’s Gospel this same wonderful news. Jhn 15:5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”
What are some of the ways we can wait on the Lord?
We can wait on the Lord on our knees in prayer.
We can wait on the Lord with the Bible open before us as we meditate and read it each day.
We can wait on the Lord in the company of the Church, gathering before Him in worship and praise.
We can wait on Him in the intensive care unit waiting room.
We can wait on Him when we are in despair and overwhelmed.
Those who hope in the Lord were believers who remained faithful to God!
They were the ones who would be restored.
Today God wants you to wait on Him with hope and He promises to renew your strength no matter your age or physical condition.
As we learn to trust God, as we wait on Him, He enables us to soar during a crisis, to run when the challenges are many, and to walk faithfully in the routine day-by-day demands of life.
I pray that this week you will sense God’s power strength and might lifting you above all that the world has thrown at you.
Wait on the Lord….