Isaiah 40 is a great chapter from start to finish, We have focused this week on the last six verses. We see that we have a God who can hear and act on our complaints based on His nature. It is God who gives strength to the weary. I love the way the chapter ends:
31 but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint. (NIV)
Those who hope in the Lord are indeed fortunate — to soar on wings like eagles, to run and not grow weary, to walk and not be faint. How do we find this hope in the Lord?
Isaiah is implying that a personal encounter with God is needed to stimulate hope. We would describe this as a personal encounter with Christ. When we spend quality personal time with the Savior we often leave soaring. When eagles “soar” at the peak of their flights they seldom flap their wings. They soar by capturing the updrafts of air around them and ride the waves of air. We soar by capturing the waves of God’s grace in Jesus Christ that we discover in personal time with him. The results of this personal time stay with us. Soaring turns to running without weariness which turns to walking without faintess. Our desire should always be to spend enough time with Jesus to soar. I am not sure that anyone can soar all the time. Even his closest disciples had to leave the mountain top and return to the valley with Jesus. But while there they soared! Their description was like that heard after encounters with Jesus elsewhere in the NT, “Didn’t our hearts burn within us!”
I have always enjoyed Superman. I have enjoyed his way of using his “powers” for good. In the earlier Superman cartoons, whenever he was about to fly Superman would say, “Up, up, and away!”
My prayer is that you would have frequent encounters with Christ. My prayer is that you would soar! Up, up, and away!
Filed under: Bible Study, Christian life, Discipleship, Spiritual Warfare | Tagged: Isaiah 40, soaring
I’m just realizing from the last heavy season…my faith was getting overwhelmed by so many burdens all around me. What brought me out of that was not more time with Jesus, which I did, and that kept me firm, but what lifted me was more time with other believers. I suppose I had withdrawn somewhat, as we tend to do when we are tired, afraid of not being able to risk hearing of one more burden.
I guess because of my fear and fatigue, my faith was becoming too theoretical… I needed to see it “flesh-ed out” in real life through someone else’s long journey and God’s ultimate deliverance to restore my hope in a real-life God.
…because of that, I sometimes think we need a balanced combination of the two, church and time with Him alone, rather than just the one alone. Sure…Jesus can sustain us alone, but, I know without a doubt that what lifted me was hearing of a long journey met by a huge God-solution, namely a parent’s long journey, and the restoring of hearing to a deaf child. When we watched the video of that toddler hear jer Daddy say, “I love you” for the first time…my heart broke,–my faith lifted not to fall again in that season.
I thought, “Yeah, that’s my God.” I wept and wept.
Never tire of finding creative and inspiring ways to share God’s work in your life. It may be what somebody else needs to soar again. (Sorry this was long!)
PS: You might have heard this when you went, but last night at the Casting Crowns concert, he shared the polar scripture to this in Psalm 1: Walking…to standing…to sitting. He attributed it to starting with poor counsel. (He who walks in the counsel of the wicked). I thought about this week’s focal scriptures for us here, too.