Never Weary
This chapter, for me, is one of absolute tiredness. Whatever this illness is that's shadowed me for the past two years, it brings with it a kind of fatigue I never could have imagined. The past two days I've been in another flare, spending long stretches of the day in bed or on the couch. Exhaustion and depletion mark the hours. Beyond the physical limitations are the mental, emotional, and spiritual layers of weariness. Life comes at us in waves, as always, and leaves us spent and worn out.
I know I'm not alone.
The verse that runs through my mind so often in this season comes from Isaiah 40, "The Lord... will not grow tired or weary..." (Isaiah 40: 28, emphasis mine).
Oh, how I lean on those words some days. When my stores are spent, he remains unwearied. When my life is consumed by exhaustion, he does not grow tired. His strength is immeasurable. When I can't stand on my own ability, his remains.
I so often think of the verse in isolation, grateful for a God who never wearies in my season of deep weariness. But there's so much more to this passage. So much more than a God who has boundless energy.
The chapter begins with these words, "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God."
How I want to sit there. To allow the comfort to seep into every weary part of my being.
He speaks of the years of hard labor, of punishment for sin, which are now paid. There is comfort. There is healing. And that healing is the coming Jesus: "A voice of one calling: 'In the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.'" (Isaiah 40:3).
In our desert, he is preparing a way, a way of comfort and strength. A highway for our God to come to us, to meet us, to strengthen us. He says, "every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain" (v. 4). Nothing will keep him from us. No obstacle, no mountain, no valley. A highway for our God--our unwearied, never-tiring God.
We falter. Oh, how we falter. He describes us like grass, withering under the heat of the sun. We don't know what it means to be unwearied. Yet he "comes with power" (v. 10), and "tends his flock like a shepherd," gathering "the lambs in his arms and [carrying] them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young" (v. 11).
Where we are nothing, he is everything. Where we have nothing, he has everything. The power, the strength, the freedom, the understanding, the peace, the comfort.
This God stopped at nothing to make a highway to us, to carry us in our weakness.
"He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, the will walk and not be faint" (Isaiah 40: 30-31).
Thank goodness for a God who never grows tired. Thank goodness for a God who bridged the space between us that I was unable to cross. Thank goodness that when my strength has reached its end, the God who abounds in power and never wearies stands ready to gather me in his arms and imbue me with strength.
Some days his is all the strength I have.
