Strength for the waiting
by Linda Macqueen
Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.
Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength (Isaiah 40:31a).
Read Isaiah 40:25–31
Yesterday, we left the disciples quivering in the upper room, sensing doom. In the coming days, they will huddle in dark corners, fighting twin tormentors: the fear of abandonment and the loss of all hope. We’ve heard this story before. Or one like it.
Hundreds of years earlier, about 7,000 of God’s people were locked up in a foreign land, broken under abandonment and hopelessness, not for a few days or even years, but for entire generations. Into that national despair, God asks a startling question: ‘To whom will you compare me?’ Through his prophet Isaiah, God calls them to lift their gaze from their exhaustion to the One who names the stars and gives them their orders. Renewal for the exiled people of Judah begins not with pulling themselves up by their bootstraps but with a fresh vision of God’s enduring faithfulness and sovereign strength.
It’s against this dark backdrop that verse 31a – the star of countless Christian memes – shines brightly: ‘But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.’ The Hebrew verb here, qāvāh, carries the sense of hopeful, tensile waiting – like strands twisted together to form a strong rope. Waiting on God is not passive or resigned. It is the active, intentional trust of people who bind their lives to his life, drawing strength through the long, dark silences from the One who holds them.
Just like the captives in Babylon, we can grow weary not only from life’s challenges themselves, but also from the pressure to solve them in our own strength. Isaiah reminds us that renewal comes not from tightening our grip, but from being held. Those who ‘wait’ in the qāvāh sense – who intertwine their hope with God’s promises – discover a strength that is not self-generated. We rise, not because circumstances have changed, but because we are lifted up by the everlasting God.
My Lord and God, who calls out the stars by name, forgive me for relying on my own vision, strength and courage to overcome the challenges I face. Help me to trust in you, to wait patiently on you and to hope only in you, until you raise me up again on eagle’s wings. Amen.
Linda Macqueen retired in September last year, having served 26 years as editor of The Lutheran and communications manager for the LCANZ. She has rapidly adapted to retirement, happily and energetically bringing her long-neglected home and garden back to life. She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills with her husband Mark.
- Click here to read previous devotions.
- We are also posting them on LCA Facebook, making it easy for you to share them with family and friends.
- Sign up to receive Daily Devotion in your inbox every morning. If you’re already doing that, please encourage others to sign up. Click here for the link.
