This is a guest post from Jake Ainsworth.
Jake is a worship leader and speaker in his church and writes at Christ is my Author.
If you would like to write a Guest Post for the Till He Comes Blog, begin by reading the Guest Blogger Guidelines.
Recently, I experienced a job loss. The resulting loss of income forced me to move my family from our home. As a man, I was devastated and demoralized.
My life verse has always been Isaiah 40:31, “But they who wait for 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.” (ESV)
When I had to sit down with my landlords and tell them that I couldn’t pay them, I didn’t feel very lifted up. My strength certainly did not feel renewed. I felt weary, like I was fainting on the path that life was leading me. And I couldn’t understand why. Why wasn’t God fulfilling the promise that I had called on so many times in my life? Why did I feel abandoned and alone?
By God’s grace, I started to study my life verse. I needed to know that answer to my question: Why? One of the most useful things I have ever learned about studying the Bible is that I need to go back to the root of the text, find out what it meant in the original language. So I grabbed my Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and began to dig in.
What I found floored me. The Hebrew word for ‘wait’ is qavah, which literally means to bind together as in a rope. This does not mean to tie something to a tree. It means to take smaller strands and weave them together to make one solid rope.
The revelation hit me like a freight train. The reason I wasn’t feeling lifted up or renewed is because I had an obligation in that verse as well. Isaiah says that the ones who receive the renewing of strength and the lifting up on wings like eagles are those who wait on the Lord.
I had been looking at this all wrong. How could I expect God to bless me and help me through tough times when I don’t even acknowledge Him unless I’m in trouble? So I began to apply what I had learned from my studying. I started weaving God into every aspect of my life: the good, bad, ugly, and everything in between.
