719_Drawing strength from the Almighty
Isaiah 40:27-31 Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my right is disregarded by my God”?
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30 Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
31 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.
Have you ever watched an eagle ride the currents of the wind? Unlike smaller birds that constantly flap their wings to stay aloft, an eagle allows the invisible currents beneath it to carry it higher and higher. What seems like effortless flight is actually the result of the eagle depending on a power greater than itself.
Life often feels very different. We find ourselves flapping harder, striving more, pushing through exhaustion, trying to carry burdens that seem heavier with each passing day. There are seasons when our strength runs out, our hopes begin to fade, and we wonder how much longer we can keep going.
The Scottish preacher Alexander Maclaren once said, “The God who sends us into the struggle does not leave us to fight alone.” This is what Isaiah 40 says – a chapter written to weary people who had almost forgotten what hope felt like, who desperately needed strength beyond their own.
Isaiah 40:12–31 presents God as the source of glorious, life-sustaining strength – the strength that he wants us to draw upon by relying upon him.
Isaiah was prophesying to people who would go into exile to Babylon. Jerusalem would have fallen. Their homeland would be occupied by others. Many of the exiles would have spent almost all their lives in captivity. Decades had passed out of their land. The promises of God seemed distant and impossible.
As discouragement settled into their hearts, they would cry, as in Isaiah 40:27, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God.”
Can you hear the pain behind those words? They were essentially saying, “God has forgotten me.”
Sometimes we feel the same way. We pray for help in the same situation for months or even years. We carry secret burdens that threaten to overwhelm us. We wait for God to act but nothing happens.
But in response to this cry of hopelessness, God does not explain why they continue to suffer. His marvelous answer to his people is: Look away from your circumstances, and look at me. For already, he has promised them that he is their strong and tender shepherd. Isaiah 40:11 says, “He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom.”
The Almighty is not distant, nor is he indifferent.
Then Isaiah asks a series of questions that reveal the greatness of God.
“Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?” “Who has marked off the heavens with a span?” “Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord?”
The unmarked, vast expanses of the ocean fit within His hand. He measured the immense heavens overhead with ease. He required no consultation nor advice. He never needed a teacher. His wisdom is beyond our grasp.
Isaiah brings God’s people back to a proper view of God.
Babylon looked powerful. Jerusalem appeared irreparably ruined. Their problems seemed overwhelming. But Isaiah reminds them, in verse 15, “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket.” What a perspective shift that must have been.
Often our greatest problem is that we stare at our difficulties until they dominate our vision. We focus on our limitations until they seem insurmountable. Our problems grow larger and larger while God grows smaller and smaller in our minds.
But Isaiah does the opposite. By showing who God really is, he makes everything else shrink to its proper size.
For, as Isaiah 40:28 asks, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.”
Everything in our world wears out. Batteries lose power. Machines break down. Bodies grow tired. Minds become weary. Human strength is always limited. But not God. For, as Isaiah continues, “He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.”
God never wearies of sustaining His creation. His wisdom never runs dry. His love and his power are never exhausted by the needs of His people. There is never a moment when His resources are depleted or His attention is divided.
And not only is he almighty, but “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength” (Isaiah 40:29).
God does not promise strength to the self-sufficient, but to the faint – to those who are crushed and powerless.
The Apostle Paul discovered this truth firsthand. He pleaded with the Lord to remove his thorn in the flesh, but he received something far greater: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
The world tells us to hide our weakness – but when we stop doing that and turn helplessly to God, He gives us strength. He does not want us to act stronger, but to come to him.
The strength and vitality of the young will run out very soon. No human strength is without limit. Determination is inadequate to sustain us forever.
How then can we continue when we are tired beyond our capacity to endure? The Lord reassures us, “They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31).
Waiting on the Lord means trusting Him when we cannot move forward for want of strength. It means casting ourselves wholly in dependence on him. It means resting in His promises so that we may continue to walk in obedience.
The exiles were helpless to reverse the course of history. They were powerless to help free their beloved land, or even return to it. They waited for 70 long years – but they needed to trust and walk in the strength of their God while they waited. And so do we.
Sometimes God changes our circumstances quickly. Other times He strengthens us within them. Either way, those who wait on Him discover His strength renewing theirs.
Isaiah describes those who are strengthened in this way: “They shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
Whatever the challenge, God is the strength to meet it with joy and confidence. To soar above the world that tries to tug at us, setting our minds on things above where Christ sits at the right hand of God. To run the race, persevering in trust and in love, knowing that we shall obtain the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus, and be changed into his likeness. And to walk in the Spirit, in obedience, in power, in love, even when earth offers no reward for doing so.
Life consists of drudgery, of crushing responsibilities, of suffering. Yet God’s strength is more than enough to carry us through to the finish line with endurance and joy.
He renews our strength for the next step. Strength to keep trusting. Strength to keep praying. Strength to keep serving. Strength to keep believing that God is at work even when you cannot see it, and to live accordingly.
For Isaiah 40 shows us that our hope is not in our own resources. It is found in the everlasting God, the Creator, the Shepherd who is gentle with the lambs and the mothers. The Almighty who never grows weary exchanges your worn-out strength with the power of his might.
With our eyes lifted to our God, let us soar above the pressures, disappointments, and uncertainties that surround us. Let us remember our God. Let us abide in him. Let us trust his limitless wisdom and his unbounded love, that guide his immeasurable power in us. For he renews strength, he sustains joy, he gives peace, until our weariness is transformed into his rest.
The same God who strengthened His people in exile is still strengthening His people today. And those who wait for Him will experience his strength until all His purposes are fulfilled. God bless.
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