Isaiah 40:31 is flying around my thoughts. ‘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.

I realize you all know this verse – but even so – it’s where I’m at and for those who are in need of strength and encouragement and I hope you find it here.

It’s that divine recurring theme again. Trust. This waiting is not simply ‘making time’ but living in confident expectation that He will do it. Not the familiar running ahead and trying to solve it all ourselves. He is close to those who are weak and who trust Him. This promise speaks of us being a trust people, a hope people moving into a revived and renewed people.

The word in this verse for wait was ‘qavah’.

The figurative meaning of the word is hope, expect, and anticipate. But check out the literal. The literal meaning is ‘to bind together like a cord’. Think binding and twisting together – weaving together threads to form a rope.

They shall mount up with wings as eagles – Lowth translates this ‘They shall put forth fresh feathers like the molting eagle;’ and in his note on the passage says, that ‘it has been a common and popular opinion that the eagle lives and retains his vigor to a great age; and that, beyond the common lot of other birds, he molts in his old age, and renews his feathers, and with them his youth.’ He supposes that Psalm 103:5, ‘So that your youth is renewed like the eagles,’ refers to this.

There’s so much metaphor and symbolic imagery around eagles but I love the ‘waiting on the Lord’ image here. The waiting is an active waiting. It is the binding together which I’m focusing on. In this waiting and communing with God, He is weaving truth and character through us, ‘… a cord of three strands is not quickly broken’.

Also,

I see that it’s about community; it’s the image of strengthening together. Lets not try and do this alone – that only leads to frayed thoughts and lives. Let us invite others to join in and wait with us, the more strands that are twisted or woven together in a rope, the greater is its strength. A piece of rope can lift huge weight because of these strands. The rope stretches while it is working, pulling the strands closer together, no one individual strand does the work. The strength comes from all strands working together.

Love it!

A few thoughts from the Oregon coast…more to follow,

Love and prayers,

Michelle x