This week my devotions led me to Isaiah 40:30-31, which says: “Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for 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.”
There were two things I noticed as I read this section of scripture—two things that I think can encourage us and help us in these challenging times that have left many of us weary and exhausted.
The first is the reality that God knows we’re going to experience weakness and fatigue in this fallen, broken world. We’re told in these verses that even youth become weak and tired.
My son Toby has always been high energy. From day one (19 years ago) it took everything I had to keep up with him. The thing is, that energy would eventually run out. It wasn’t uncommon when he was little for him to fall asleep in the car on the way home from a long day or to fall asleep on the couch in the evening after playing hard all day.
The reality is even youth with all their energy grow weak and tired. And it’s no surprise to God that we do too. He knows we are human and our physical bodies can only take so much. The key is how we deal with our fatigue and exhaustion.
This leads to the second thing we see in these scriptures, which is the fact that we renew our strength in the Lord. It says as we wait on the Lord, He gives us the strength we need to “mount up with wings like eagles”.
When we find ourselves weary and exhausted, do we take time to wait on the Lord? When was the last time we actually took time to Sabbath? And Sabbath isn’t just going to church, it’s actually taking time to put everything else aside to rest our bodies and connect with the Lord. It’s something we’re called to do weekly. “Remember the Sabbath and Keep it Holy” is one of God’s Commandments. This is because God knows we need to rest and He knows that He’s the only one that can truly renew our strength. If you’re feeling tired and weary today, I encourage you to take time to wait on the Lord and rest in Him!
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