Copyright ©
2025 Michael A. Brown
‘He gives strength to
the weary and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; 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.’ (Isa.
40:29-31)
‘…whose weakness was turned to strength…’
(Heb. 11:34)
Some of you
reading this today are going through difficult circumstances, in your own personal
life or perhaps in your family, and you may be wilting under the pressure of
what you are going through. You feel
down, discouraged and despondent, and your faith is
weak. Or perhaps you have simply
been so busy for so long with the daily demands of work and family needs (and
perhaps giving out a lot in ministry too!) that you have spent little or no
time with God recently, and you feel empty, exhausted and far from him. In your heart, you
know that you need to renew your strength in the Lord, so that you can be
spiritually refreshed and be able to face and cope with what you are
going through. You need to know God’s
strength once again in your human weakness…
There are several good
examples in Scripture of the link between knowing God as our strength (or knowing his
strength in our life) and our being in difficult or challenging circumstances
in life. For example, the psalmist tells
us that it is God who is and can be our refuge and strength, our help in times
of trouble when everything around us seems to be falling apart: ‘God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart
of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake
with their surging’ (Ps. 46:1-3).
Similarly, the context of the
well-known words in Isaiah 40:31 about waiting on the Lord and renewing our
strength (quoted above) is
that of believers who are going through difficulties, who perhaps feel
abandoned by God and are complaining to him: ‘Why do you say, O Jacob, and
complain, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my
God”?’
(Isa. 40:27). So God responds by telling them that he is
able to renew their strength even in the midst of their troubles: ‘He gives strength
to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young
men stumble and fall; 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’ (Isa.
40:29-31).
When the apostle Paul was suffering from his thorn in the
flesh and had prayed three times for the Lord to take it away from him, God
told him that his grace would be sufficient for him, and that through this
grace he could know the very strength and power of God within him in his times
of weakness: ‘But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so
that Christ’s power may rest on me. That
is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships,
in persecutions, in difficulties. For
when I am weak, then I am strong’ (2 Cor. 12:9-10).
Such
passages as these (and many others) teach us that, when we are in times of need
and feeling very much our human weakness as believers, we can appropriate the
strength of God into our lives. He is
with us, and he is willing and ready to give us and to be to us all the strength
that we need! Indeed it is his promise
and our right as his children to be able to know and experience his strength. He has given us many promises in his word
about knowing his strength. Whereas non-believers do not have
access to this divine resource of God’s strength, we as his children do. They walk through life merely in their own
often-failing ‘human strength,’ and when they are really down and discouraged, so
often they have no-one to lift them up.
By contrast, we have access into God’s strength, so that we can walk
through the circumstances of life in its power.
However, when we as believers do not walk in God’s strength in difficult
or challenging times, it is too often the case that
discouragement and despondency set in.
As a consequence, our spiritual lives do not remain fresh, we are not
strong, there is no breakthrough and there is no overcoming faith. We wilt and may even cave in under the
pressure of what we are going through.
So it is God’s
desire for us that we learn to live and walk consistently out of his strength,
rather than meandering through life and its problems merely in our human
weakness. It is his purpose that we walk
consistently in his strength and live out of this as we go through life,
particularly when we are going through difficult or challenging times. So waiting on the Lord to renew our strength
is something that we all have to learn to do from time to time. If we are to walk with God over the
long-haul of our lives, in and through all that we experience in life, then we
must learn and master this lesson of waiting on the Lord so that we can live in
his strength. As his children, we
can receive God’s grace and strength so that we are not like those around us
who do not know him, and whose human strength fails them when they need it the
most. God is wanting to raise up sons
and daughters on this earth who know how to walk in his strength and power in
life! And there is no reason why you cannot
do this too! It is what God wants for
you! Through knowing and experiencing
God’s strength, we can rise above our problems as we go through them. We can be the head, rather than being the
tail and always being dragged along the road of life by our problems. God can give – and is willing to give us – all
the inner strength that we need, and he has made it freely available to all those
who will come and avail themselves of it!
He wants to be your strength today!
The inner
secret of renewing our spiritual strength lies in the meaning of the Hebrew
word qavah in Isaiah 40:31. It literally means to
be ‘intertwined’ or ‘bound together,’ so suggesting a close and intimate
relationship between ourselves and God, and hence giving rise to its figurative
meaning as ‘expectancy.’ Having such expectancy
towards God on our part suggests looking to him patiently, tarrying and waiting
upon him in expectation. And so this
word is translated figuratively in various ways, such as ‘hope’, ‘wait’, or
‘trust.’ The verse could well be
translated in this way: ‘those who bind
themselves expectantly to the LORD, so having a living hope in him, will renew
their strength.’ This word qavah highlights the important
relational aspect of living with God, and so walking with him through issues in
life. It emphasises, therefore, the need
to live consistently out of our living union with God in Christ. God does not expect us – and has never
expected us! – to live our Christian lives in our own strength as though,
having received Christ and begun a new life in him, we are then left to
ourselves to live it in our own human strength.
So we renew
our spiritual strength as we come aside from our problems and draw near to God,
waiting quietly and worshipfully on him in his presence (Isa. 40:31, 30:15).
The Holy Spirit (who dwells in and abides with us) is the One who gives
us strength. His name as ‘Comforter’
derives from two Latin words (cum fortis)
which literally mean ‘with strength.’ So
his purpose is to come alongside us in our difficulties and weakness, and
infuse us with the inner spiritual strength that we need to persevere and
overcome. It is through living in
regular communion with him that we can know this divine strength rising up
within us. This is a principle that
Joshua also knew and practised. As he
faced leading the Israelites into the promised land, he was exhorted by God to
be strong and very courageous (see Josh. 1:7,9). But the secret of actually experiencing this
strength lay in him being regularly in the presence of God (cf. Ex. 33:11),
meditating on the word of God and obeying it: ‘Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it
day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful’
(Josh. 1:8). We renew our
strength as we wait on God and meditate on his word in his presence. God’s
word is spirit and it is life to us (John 6:63). It inspires our faith and infuses strength
into our spirit as we meditate on it.
As we draw
near to the throne of grace and dwell in God’s presence, meditating on his
word, we can confess our failures and weaknesses and receive his mercy, we can
cast all our cares upon him, and his grace can then begin to strengthen us
inwardly (Heb. 4:16, 2 Cor. 12:9-10, 1 Peter 5:7). We
can stay in his presence and meditate on his word, communing with him for as
long as it takes for our cold hearts to be warmed and the grace that we need to
arise within, diffused within us by the indwelling Holy Spirit, to strengthen
and enable us, and to overcome the subjective internal effects of our
circumstances upon us. As this
happens within us, fear melts away and is replaced by faith; worry, anxiety and
complaining are displaced by trust and deep peace; human weakness is changed to
spiritual strength, and so on. This deep
subjective change in our inward spiritual condition shows us that we are
experiencing God’s overcoming grace and his strength within us: ‘It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace…’ (Heb. 13:9).
As we regularly
practise waiting on the Lord in this way in our times of need, we come to understand
that God’s grace really is sufficient for all
our needs, and that his strength and power really are perfected in our human
weakness. The apostle Paul evidently found that this worked in his own life and
ministry. Indeed, he seems to have
mastered this lesson so well in practice that he even said he boasted ‘all the more gladly about my weaknesses’ and that he delighted ‘in weaknesses, in
insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties’ (2 Cor. 12:9,10).
He had learned that,
whenever he was weak and in need, he had a secret source at the throne of grace
where he could seek a renewal of God’s grace and power within him, making him
spiritually strong and helping him to overcome (2 Cor. 12:10). He
proved in experience that God’s grace would always be
sufficient for him whatever his circumstances: ‘for when I am weak, then I am
strong’ (2 Cor. 12:10).
So what about you, my friend? Are you feeling weak and discouraged? Do you feel like everything around you is
falling apart? Have you become exhausted
by the daily demands of life and do you feel far from God? You need God’s grace, and you need a renewal
of his strength within you! So draw
aside and wait expectantly on the Lord, spend some time quietly with him and
meditate on his word. He will be your
strength! Let him warm your heart and
refresh you once again with his grace, and you will find that the strength you
need rises up within you. As you do
this, then as Isaiah 40:31 says, you will find yourself rising up on eagles’ wings as the Holy
Spirit’s presence lifts you up, your faith will be refreshed and renewed, and
you will be able to walk and run once again and not be weary or faint. May God be your strength today!
Here are some more
verses which will encourage you to seek and live in the strength of God in your
life:
‘The LORD is my strength and my shield; my
heart trusts in him, and I am helped.’ (Ps 28:7)
‘Blessed are those whose strength is in
you… They go from strength to strength…’
(Ps. 84:5,7)
‘Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is
your strength.’ (Neh. 8:10)
‘Let us fix our eyes
on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith… so that you will not grow
weary and lose heart… Therefore,
strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.’ (Heb. 12:2,3,12)
‘Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his
mighty power…’ (Eph. 6:10)
‘Let the weak say, “I am strong!”’ (Joel
3:10 AV)
‘…your strength will equal your days.’
(Deut. 33:25)
‘He will keep you strong to the end, so that you may be blameless on
the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (1 Cor. 1:8)
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