Godly Optimism
Isaiah 40:31
But they that wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary…


The knapsack that galls and oppresses the novice at mountain climbing is borne without fatigue by the guide who is accustomed to it. There are amateur and spasmodic philanthropists who dabble occasionally with the great social problems, and they feel their weight and cry out in despair. But the Christian has had that care upon his heart daffy, and he knows how to bear it, and before whom to lay it. But, further. He who has only seen the sorrow, the grief, the sin of the world has not penetrated to the depth of the problem. He sees the clouds and mist around the planet, but not the world itself. Who, of all men who ever lived upon the earth, was the One who had the sorrow of the world nearest to His heart? But you picture the life of the Lord Jesus Christ from the wrong angle, if you picture Him only as "the Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief." He was that, but that is not the last analysis of the character of the Lord Jesus Christ. None had such joy as Christ. Do you remember after His statement of great intellectual and moral truths that make the brain weary and the heart of the uninitiated faint, it is recorded that the Lord Jesus Christ's spirit leapt for joy, and He said, "Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes"! He mounted up on eagle's wings to meet the down-coming Spirit of the Father. And look at that time when He has the burden of the world upon Him. He is making His will. What has the Lord Jesus Christ to leave? His Cross. That is His great legacy to the Church. But how does He leave it? In the power to endure it. "My peace I give unto you," that is the legacy. And when He Calls us home, He who sits upon the circle of the heavens, and sees all the sorrow of this world as you and I can never see it, bids us "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." He who looks only at the burden of the world, and only sees its sorrow and shame, has not got to the last analysis of its meaning; he has not touched the Rock, is floundering in the mud. You must get deeper and deeper yet, and when you touch the Rock — the pillars of the earth — you will come to the fact that under all there is the eternal blessedness. And the man who waits upon God enters into that eternal calm and blessedness.

(F. L. Wiseman, B. A.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

WEB: But those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint.




Exhaustion and Renewal, in Nature and in Grace
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