29th October 2017 by Pastor Allen Ramteke
Todays passage for meditation is from the book of Isaiah chapter 40 verses 28-31 which reads as below;
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 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.
– Here in this passage the Lord, God Almighty is speaking to the people through prophet Isaiah. God is giving a message of comfort for the people who were feeling abandoned. Many times, we too feel that God has abandoned us, especially when our prayers are not answered. But here God is giving a comforting assurance not only to the people in those times but today to each one of us that even if our prayers may not be answered, He has neither forgotten nor forsaken us. God is saying that He has never given upon any of us.
– The prophet is reminding the people that this God whom they feel has abandoned them is the one who has called them to be His children. He is never going to be faint or become weary of all the mistakes that we do. Sometimes the devil (also known as the father of lies) fools us in believing that we have been a very bad person. He compels us to believe his lie, fill our hearts with condemnation and hence stop praying. How much ever the devil tries to condemn us, God says it again and again that He is never tired of us. He still loves and cares for us and will always provide for us.
– We are all like the earthen vessels, completely fragile and imperfect, but we have a perfect God through whom we all have hope. In our weakness, He is there with us as our strength. His ways are always higher than our ways. – V29 – 31 says “He gives power to the faint and to those who don’t have might, he gives strength.”
– God is exhorting us to know that He is the Everlasting God with no beginning and no end. This everlasting God is our God. He has been God and He will always be God. No matter how many times we fall, He will always be our God and an ever-present help in times of troubles.
– God wants us to always depend upon Him. He doesn’t faint. Nothing that man can do will ever surprise God because God know each one of us through and through. In every situation God is telling us that “I am your daddy, I am going to lift you up from every messy situation.”
– Once upon a time, in the jungles of Africa, one man found a very big round object. He brought it home because he was curious to know what it is. The villagers told him that it is an egg. He was surprised to know it hence made his hen sit on the egg to hatch along with the other eggs of its own. Over a period, the small eggs hatched but the big egg was still intact. The man was persistent, so he again made the hen sit on that big egg alone for more days. After few days the egg hatched but the chick was completely different from others. It was an eaglet unlike the chicks though neither the eaglet, the chicks nor the hen knew, not even the man realized.
– The eaglet tried very hard to be like the other chicks, but it could never succeed. It always felt it was different than the others but never realized what the difference was. The other chicks used to make fun of it and always discouraged it to do anything different. Whenever it tried to spread its big wings, the chicks never approved of it. They always stopped the eaglet from doing anything because the chicks themselves couldn’t fly at all. But one day the eaglet made a choice and decided to be different, just like Shadrach, Meshach and Abed Nego, who chose to be different, who chose not bow down to the idols like the other people, who chose to be an eaglet and not a chick. God wants us also to be different like the eaglet. He has chosen us and called us His own because He wants each one of us to be unique.
– One day the snake came to their coop and all the chicks ran away but the eaglet felt something very strong in its heart which make him run boldly after the snake, just like David ran after Goliath not because he was strong but because he chose to be different. Unfortunately, the eaglet never realized that it is not a chick but an eaglet. Many times, we also never realize the power of God working within us, so we too end up living a life of defeat like the others. Our life is not supposed to be like the hen/the chicks that runs away for life on the face of a trial, but God wants us to be like the eagle who is ever ready to face everything courageously.
– Another day a crow caught the eaglet in its claws mistaking it to be a chick and tried to tighten its claws as it flew high. But the eaglet spread its wings wide, freed itself from the claws and flew higher than the crow. That is when the eaglet realized that he is not one among the hens, but he is called to be different. God doesn’t want us to be like the clucking chicken always dwelling in our hurts and problems, complaining and murmuring about our difficulties but He wants us to understand God’s power in our lives and rise above every circumstance/storm and fly/soar higher and higher in the arms of the everlasting God, just like the eagle.
– There comes a mid-life crisis in every eagle’s life when it goes through painful shedding of feathers and losing of all its strength. At that phase of its life, the eagle has two options; one is to give up completely or other is to wait for all the feathers to be shed, hit and break the beak on the rock and wait, wait and just wait. It is easy and painless to give up, but the eagle always chooses the hard way and that is waiting. It must keep waiting and waiting and undergo the pain of losing everything nice until the new feathers appear. Samson was a very strong man in his country but when he lost his strength He was all alone in the stadium. People completely rejected him, tied up to the pillars and left all alone to die. That is when he prayed to God, waited upon Him and depended on Him to deliver from the humiliation. That day he killed more Philistines than he could when he was free, he had his strength and hands untied. Are you feeling lonely or left out? God is more than willing to help you and deliver you, but are you willing to depend on Him?
– God has called each one of us to be like the eagles, to fly like an eagle above every storm and to depend or wait on God until its strength is renewed. And His promise for each one of us is to fill us with His power and renew us in such a way that we will also soar high on wings like eagles. Do we depend upon God?
– The greatest eagle that flew on the face of the earth was Jesus. Jesus brought healing, breakthroughs, deliverances and made the presence of God real for the people around Him. Jesus came to fulfil the law and not to abolish it. The disciples told Jesus not to talk about his death just like the chicks discouraged the eaglet, but Jesus was like the eagle. He spoke boldly about His own death on the cross and could save the world because Jesus, though 100% God and 100% man, was totally depending on the Father and the Holy Spirit. Allow your hearts to completely depend and wait upon him. He wants to give us new vision, higher than anything and unseen from man.
Are you willing to depend and wait on God because God promises and gives us the assurance in verse 31 that “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.”
