Waiting 5/5

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. (Isaiah 40.30,31)

Being able to deal with the struggles of being exiled from home is a matter of grace. God must act. He must give us what we need to continue. And he does. But there is something that we are to do. Having received his gifts of power and strength, we are to wait for him. Don't be fooled by how that sounds to our ears. This is not a passive waiting. It is a waiting that can wait because it knows that our God will act. He will act at the right time, according to what Isaiah calls his 'unsearchable' understanding. It is a waiting that can patiently wait because he has given us the strength we need to wait. This waiting is an active waiting because it is an expression of believing him. He has promised that our exile will end. Jesus will return. There will be a new heavens and a new earth. And we will enjoy home with renewed bodies - just as he promised. We are not forgotten. He is completely aware of our struggles. But it isn't time yet for the exile to be over. So, we choose to wait - because we believe him when he promises. We believe him because he gives us the strength to be able to believe him. And because of that we wait in hope. As we do that we know that our waiting in this way actually hastens the arrival of that promised day. Our waiting is not for nothing. One day it will happen and all of the troubles of now will be over.

Even so, come Lord Jesus!

Waiting 4/5

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. (Isaiah 40.29)

Life in exile is hard. The tempter is busy. There is doubt about the true character of our God. Isaiah responds to all of this. He provides answers to our questions. But, as important as those answer are, they are not the solution. If knowing the right answers is all that is needed, then being able to hang in there would only depend on our being knowledgeable enough. According to this way of thinking, life would be fine if we were able to understand and agree with Isaiah's answers. So, when life gets a little challenging all you'd need to do is pull out answer #3 - or whichever one applied. But what is that but saving ourselves. We'd be rescued by our intellectual abilities and gritty resolve to view life in terms of what we know. Where's the Gospel in that? 

Answers are important, but they cannot save. So, Isaiah says more about this God. 'He gives power ... he increases strength. He gives good gifts. And it's because he gives us those gifts that we are able to continue on. Dealing with the struggles of exile is not a matter of thinking better and then trying harder. That will not work. The difficulties are too great. The tempter is too strong. Dealing with the difficulties of exile is a matter of grace. Our Father must give us what we need so that we can endure to the end. He gives the power that we need and the strength to hold on.

Waiting 3/5

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. (Isaiah 40.28)

Here, Isaiah gives us a reason to hold on, a reason to continue to hope for home. He points us to our God. He reminds us what kind of God he is. Behind so many questions and so many problems lies this fundamental question: What is God like? What kind of person is he? It is as we know who our God is that we can have a real hope. Isaiah reminds us that our God does not fail. He does not make promises and then finds that he doesn't have enough oomph to keep them. He is the one, after all, who created all of this. And then, Isaiah reminds us that our God understands what is going on. In fact, he knows the situation so much better than we do - so much better. So, our struggles with life are not because our God has somehow dropped the ball. Yes, there seems to be a gap between what has been promised - home - and what we actually experience. But that's not because our God has blown it.

Waiting 2/5

Why do you say, Jacob, ​​​​​​Why do you say, Israel, ​​​​​​“The LORD is not aware of what is happening to me, ​​​​​​My God is not concerned with my vindication”? (Isaiah 40.27)

Waiting is hard. That should not be news to anyone. It shows itself in this chapter in the verse quoted above. The claim is that the God of Israel has forgotten about his exiled people. He is not aware of what is happening to them. After all, that's how it feels as they sit in far away Babylon. How much fun could that be? And then there is all the injustice suffered - and God doesn't care. At least, that's what it looks like.

Again, though Isaiah's original audience was a group of Jewish exiles stuck in Babylon long ago, by the Spirit, this prophecy is about us. We are the exiles that they prophetically pictured. So, it is no surprise that this verse describes what the Christian often feels: forgotten and struggling with what's going on. And that makes sense. We are, after all, exiled from our home. And because the Spirit lives within us we can feel the burden of that exile, even though, like so many of those Jews in  Babylon, we were born in exile. But it's not just our experience of homesickness. The tempter is busy. He whispers words of doubt. 'Your life is so hard. Time after time you get the short end of the stick, and no one does anything about it, not even your supposed 'heavenly Father' who made all those promises. Face it, you are forgotten. You're on your own. You need to accept that and deal with it.' There is no sin in hearing his words. Jesus also heard Satan's tempting words. It's all about how we respond. And that's why Isaiah has written this chapter.

Waiting 1/5

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. (Isaiah 40.31)

The text above is a relatively familiar and very comforting bit of Scripture, and rightly so. It has been that for me. So, I thought that it would be good to take a closer look at it. I do that based on an assumption. There is great benefit in investing some time with one bit of Scripture. There are blessings to be enjoyed that do not lie on the surface. We need to dig a bit. But it's worth it.

I've thought it best to present my thoughts in several brief posts. (There is something to be said for short and sweet.) This is the first.

Who is the audience? The first part of Isaiah, chapters 1-39, is filled with words of warning to Isaiah's contemporaries. The God of Israel sees the evil of his people. The need of the moment is repentance.  Once we get to chapter 40, however, the audience changes. Isaiah is no longer writing to the people around him. He recognizes that his words of warning have fallen on deaf ears. The condemnation will come. The people of Israel will face a very angry God. Most will be killed. But there will be others. These God will send away: the Babylonian Exile. Isaiah knows this, so he now writes for the sake of those future exiles. The day will come when they will return. That's what the opening verses of this chapter are about. The closing verses, especially the verse printed above, are about waiting until that promised return becomes a reality.

Even though Isaiah was not thinking about us when he wrote, his words of comfort are intended for us. Matthew, Mark and Luke all quote from the beginning of this chapter even though the expected return from Babylon had already occurred. They referred to Isaiah's words to herald the greater return from a greater exile. This is the return that Jesus will lead. We are the exiles. And the home to which we return will not be a plot of ground in the Middle East but a renewed heaven and earth. These words are for our comfort while we wait for that day, the day when Jesus returns and fixes everything.