“But those who wait on 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 40:31
There is plenty of action promised to those who wait, but how do you wait as an action in the meantime?
There are many places in scripture, where we are told to wait on the Lord. But the word wait is translated differently depending on the translation of the Bible you consult. The New King James Version uses wait. The New International Version uses hope. The New Living Translation uses trust.
One of my favorite words in the Spanish language is esperar. Esperar can be translated to wait but it also can be translated to hope. The dual meaning demonstrates the two sides of the of the word wait, and the way to make it an action word.
Wait sounds passive. Hope is future oriented, but ultimately, it all goes back to trust!
Throughout Isaiah 40, God is on the throne. He is just and He is in control. Verse after verse compares men to grass or grasshoppers, easily destroyed, but the word of God stands forever. Nations are described as a drop in a bucket or dust on the scales. The leaders of those nations are reduced to nothing by His breath. While all creation falls under His hand, we can breathe because the final instruction of this chapter is to wait on the Lord.
It is all about perspective!
As I explored all of Isaiah 40, I recognized the action of waiting, hoping and trusting in the Lord are intertwined and dependent on accepting the mystery of God’s narrative. God’s plan, His view of the big picture, His narrative is greater than any of our self-importance, understanding, perceptions, comfort, or even freedoms or rights.
God wants us to wait and hope on His narrative and not take ourselves or our circumstances so seriously that we lose track of the bigger narratives.
So, to wait on the Lord as an action is to hope and trust that His narrative, His bigger story, is happening regardless of what we see in front of us. We trust that nothing is a surprise to Him, and nothing is out of His control. Finally, we prepare our hearts, souls, and minds with this trust in Him to be able to move into His story however and whenever He calls us into action.
Wait is an action word.
KATHY PIERBURG 