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.
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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.
Once I began to incorporate God, ever second of every day, I began to see a change. It wasn’t a change in my circumstances or in those around me, but it was a change from within. I began to see things in perspective. It became clear to me that, by having allowed God to permeate ever part of my life, His presence became more evident in my life.
I truly believe that the only way to true peace is to weave God into your life. Morning devotions are good, but they’re not enough. Praying before meals is great, but it’s not enough. We should be seeking God constantly, without exception; for it’s only in doing so that we can truly experience the peace of God.
How have you experienced times of waiting on God in your own life? What happened, and how did you find peace?
I definitely have. I have a friend who I had been sharing the things of God including the gospel with for almost 30 years. So many times it seemed like what I said fell on deaf ears, and the friendship was frustrating at times.. I was one of a very few Christians she knew. But all the while, escaping my short-sighted gaze, God was planting seeds in her heart through our conversations, and then, the past two years, He allowed some suffering in her life and she actually started to ask me spiritual questions she had never asked before. And, after all this time, after more suffering that God allowed to bring her to the end of herself, she has now come to know Jesus as her Lord and Saviour, praise God! I am blown away by the change I hear in the way she talks, and she actually invited me to come to her church? I never thought I would live to see that ( O me of little faith!) So many times I was ready to give up on the friendship, but yet I knew God had her in my life for a reason even though I couldn’t see any impact and that he wanted me to persevere. It was a long wait, but God had it all timed in His time to bring her home to Him.