Those Who Wait for the Lord Shall Renew Their Strength

Those Who Wait for the Lord Shall Renew Their Strength

To whom then will you compare me,

   or who is my equal? says the Holy One.

Lift up your eyes on high and see:

   Who created these?

He who brings out their host and numbers them,

   calling them all by name;

because he is great in strength,

   mighty in power,

   not one is missing.

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’?

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.

He gives power to the faint,

   and strengthens the powerless.

Even youths will faint and be weary,

   and the young will fall exhausted;

but those 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 40:25-31

Mein liebes Kestrellein (my dear daughter),

You come from a lineage of dedicated but quietly working Christians. Of preachers and lay people: painting the walls and ceilings, counting and banking the offering, and just regularly being present. 

Growing up, this life following Jesus was much more demonstrated - and even simply expected - than necessarily regularly spoken about. The Christian life, like the love I experienced, was in many ways like the air we breathe and the water the fish swim in. It was a life-giving presence that easily escaped notice.

I was encouraged through this upbringing to be generous - but also to be smart - with my time and resources. To bring justice through my day-to-day work; to invest money in an ethical manner; to inflate tax-deductible donations by my marginal tax rate as a matter of course.

But if we are not careful, this can just become a recipe for burnout. Where we try to do the right thing as much as possible, but on our own strength. Then, exhausted, we swing to the alternative, getting overwhelmed by the magnitude of injustices in the world. 

So we cry out like Isaiah that people are like grass! Our faithfulness is like flowers: beautiful one minute but withered and dry the next! Hesitating, falling and failing; feeling weary and helpless in the face of climate change, domestic violence, or injustices against our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and those who seek asylum at our shores.

Here, the Holy One instead tells Isaiah to cry 'Comfort!' for His people. But we do not look inwardly for this comfort: rather, we hope in the creator of the heavens to renew our strength. For the LORD does not grow weary; the LORD cares about our ways and causes; the LORD calls us by name just as the stars. How can our own attempts possibly compare?

So we aren't called to fight injustice ourselves. Instead, we are called to be the feathers on the wings of eagles; to be the water droplets of justice rolling on in the river; to be the grains of salt on the earth.

My prayer for you as you grow, mein Schatz, is that you too may choose to join in this never-failing stream of righteousness. And that, as you do, you will renew your strength by hoping in the LORD at this season of Advent and at those to come.

Tobias Beckmann is almost a typical Canberran: public servant, median age 35, university graduate, has at least one parent born overseas and has 1.8 children. Tobias, his wife Lisa and their daughter Kestrel are a part of Dickson Baptist Church. They have supported Common Grace for a number of years.

This devotional is part of a series of daily email devotionals for Advent 2024 reflecting on the life-giving, thirst quenching justice of Jesus we long to see flow across these lands. A justice overflowing with love and compassion, bringing forth hope, healing, nourishment and flourishing for all.

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