Today’s scripture: Isaiah 40:28-31 (KJV) (The Message) What might God be saying to me?
My thoughts (David Squire):
Pastor Jeff once wrote about finding a favorite scripture and “growing into” it. This passage is one I’ve been growing into — even when I didn’t know that’s what I was doing.
I grew up in a conservative Christian home. My parents (who have been married 50 years) sacrificed to send their children (all six of us) to a Christian school, where we had Bible classes every day and chapel three times a week. I was a good kid — and pretty sure I was heading on the right path, spiritually speaking.
But about six months after I graduated from that Christian high school, my kidneys failed. Something like that can really throw a monkey wrench in your plans — and make you have questions about your faith. Why would God let something like this happen? I was angry, and confused, and scared.
I probably prayed more in the first six months after my kidneys failed than I had in all the chapel services of the past six years. I found several passages of scripture that gave me hope. Most of them were promises of healing — and I grasped at them and claimed that God would give me physical healing, too. But then there was this one, Isaiah 40:31. At first I thought it was telling me I just needed to wait on God for the renewal of my physical strength. But God was up to something else.
I waited — thinking that a miracle was just around the corner. But in all this “down” time, with all the prayer, I was drawing closer to God. (Funny how that can happen, huh?) My body wasn’t renewing its strength (dialysis really leaves a body dragging, let me tell you) but my soul was starting to learn what it meant to “run and not be weary, walk and not faint.”
It’s fascinating to me how often God has to tell us to cool our jets. Even in the scripture we named this devotional resource after (Psalm 46:10, another of my favorites) God starts by telling us, “Be still…” It’s almost like God sometimes wants to say, “Shut up! Sit down! Stop running around like a crazy person, and just listen!”
A successful transplant a few years later helped the body to catch up to the soul. But this little “detour” I went through helped me to see a few things.
My life really does run on God’s timetable — and I can either understand that and go with the flow, or I can live with the illusion that I set my own agenda, and wonder why I’m always fighting the current. And while I thought I was waiting for my body to be made strong again, God wanted to work on my heart — and that’s vastly more important. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength…
Thought for the day: Being still — waiting — is a holy act.
We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to start, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.