Waiting On God.
There is often a big difference between what we know and what we feel. It’s one thing to know that God is powerful over your circumstances. It’s another thing to trust him with your circumstances. One is relatively easy (i.e., knowing that God is powerful). The other can be terribly difficult.
Something I love about the Bible, though, is that it doesn’t gloss over people’s suffering callously. Instead, the Bible has a way of honoring the suffering we face as truly painful while directing our gaze above the suffering to a God who sees us, knows us, and is near to us when we suffer.
One beautiful example of this is found in Isaiah 40:27-31.
Isaiah 40:27 // Jacob, why do you say, and Israel, why do you assert, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my God ignores my claim”?
To understand these verses (i.e., verses 27-31), it’s helpful to understand the context in which they were written.
The book of Isaiah was written during a time when the nation of Israel was divided into two kingdoms — the Northern Kingdom (called Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (called Judah).
Specifically, when these verses were written, the nation of Assyria had already taken the Northern Kingdom (Israel) into captivity in 721 B.C.
Now, if you’re part of the Southern Kingdom, it’s easy to understand why that would have been concerning, to say the least. So much of your existence would have been overshadowed by the constant possibility of being taken captive.
Imagine, if you were living in the Southern Kingdom, every day you would wake up with a level of uncertainty. And when you trace their story, it’s clear that fear and anxiety marked the Southern Kingdom in a profound way.
Not only that, but if we look back at chapter 39:5-7 we can see that the prophet Isaiah prophesied the Southern Kingdom's captivity.
Isaiah 39:5-7 // Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord of Armies: ‘Look, the days are coming when everything in your palace and all that your predecessors have stored up until today will be carried off to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord. ‘Some of your descendants—who come from you, whom you father—will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’”
In other words, Isaiah prophecied a day when everything they owned and many of the people they loved would be taken away into captivity.
But in chapter forty, there is a turn. The prophet Isaiah begins to comfort the people of God. However, he doesn’t provide comfort the way that you and I might expect. He doesn’t try to point out the positive in their circumstances or tell them how things could actually be worse. Isaiah doesn’t try to minimize their circumstances or ignore their circumstances. Instead, he directs their gaze to a God who is sovereignly ruling and reigning above their circumstances with absolute power and authority.
That’s because the best place to look in times of trial is not within or around you but above you. However, it’s one thing to know that cognitively, it’s a very different thing to embrace it holistically. In Isaiah 40:27, we see that the people of God were struggling to believe that God was aware of their suffering. Look again at what Isaiah writes.
Isaiah 40:27 // Jacob, why do you say, and Israel, why do you assert, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my claim is ignored by my God”?
Remember, the people Isaiah is writing to live in captivity's shadow. Fear and anxiety likely marked their story in a significant way. And when they looked around at their circumstances, they thought, “God must have forgotten about us.” They knew about the sovereignty of God, but from their perspective, it didn’t feel like he was showing up in their story. So, naturally, they did what many of us often do. They began to think that their lives and their circumstances had gone unseen by God.
And if you’ve ever felt like that before or if you feel like that now, Isaiah’s response is such an encouragement. He says this:
Isaiah 40:28 // Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the whole earth. He never becomes faint or weary; there is no limit to his understanding.
Or, to say it another way, God isn’t tired of you — you’re not a burden to Him — and the circumstances in your life are not overwhelming to him. He’s not confused by them. He’s not caught off guard by them. He’s sovereign over them, and you can trust him. Keep reading:
Isaiah 40:29-31 // He gives strength to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Youths may become faint and weary, and young men stumble and fall, but those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint.
So maybe you’re reading this, and you feel a lot like the nation of Israel. Maybe you feel like there is more uncertainty than certainty in life. Maybe you feel like your circumstances have gone unseen by God. Maybe you feel like anxiety and fear mark your story in a significant way. The comfort we see in these verses is that the same God who sovereignly rules over the universe is aware of your story and wants to move on your behalf.
Most rulers disregard the faint and walk past the powerless. But that’s not what God is like. He promises to renew the strength of the weak and strengthen those who are powerless.
The promise in these verses isn’t that all your problems will go away — they may not.
The promise isn’t that your circumstances will automatically improve — they may not.
The promise is that if you wait on God, he will be with you in the midst of your circumstances, walk with you every step of the way, and give you the strength to endure. You see, God’s power is often displayed not by removing our circumstances immediately but by giving us the strength to walk through them as we wait on him.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I welcome any questions, comments, or additional thoughts you may have. If you were helped by something you read, please share it with your sphere of influence. Thanks!