A Heavenly Exchange
Read Isaiah 40: 28 – 31 First
Good news “those who wait on the Lord,” He “Shall renew their strength.”
This term “renew” means He shall exchange their weakness for His strength. This brings to mind the image of an exhausted athlete who brings his dirty, sweaty, stained uniform to the equipment manager and exchanges it for clean, fresh equipment.
That is what the Lord wants to do for us. We bring Him our weakness and exchange it for strength.
We might well pray, “Lord, I will provide the weakness if you will provide the strength.”
One successful African distance runner who had shown great endurance was asked how he does it. He said, “I just tell the Lord that if He will pick up my feet, I will put them down.”
At this point we can enter into a cooperative agreement with God. Notice the sequence.
“They shall mount up with wings like eagles.”
The text that describes us as faint, weary, and fallen now flows into a triad of refreshing potential.
An eagle is illustrative. God created eagles with certain abilities. However, for the eagle to live up to its potential, it must develop and use that ability.
The eagle is a masterful aerodynamic specimen. Its bones have air cavities, making them light, but not weak, the muscular structure is ideal for prolonged extension of the wings, and its sleek sculptured feather-coated cylindrical body lacks no aerodynamic advantage. Its anatomy makes it virtually a balloon so that when it spreads its wings, its tendency is to go up, not down.
The eagle is designed for flight in the upper atmosphere. They have been seen by pilots above 35,000 feet. They are fashioned to be at home in the upper atmosphere. As the air becomes more rarefied and defies most birds to enter it, the eagle becomes more at home. Turbulence causes thermal drafts that give the eagle greater lifting power. It loves turbulence; it works to the eagle’s advantage.
When God says we “soar like eagles,” He is saying He has designed us to soar above problems.
Though an eagle is aerodynamically designed and has a powerful body and wing system, the bird never knows it has such ability until it spreads its wings in flight. As believers we have certain spiritual reserves, but they are never known to us or revealed to anyone until we have to spread our wings. Adversity enables us to show our ability, by God’s grace, to rise above adversity.