One of my favorite scriptures is Isaiah 40:31. But it is also not one of my favorites. I like the part where my strength will be renewed. I like the part about running and not getting weary. I just don’t like the concept of waiting. I bet some of you reading this are thinking the same thing. We live in a fast-paced world; always moving and pressing on. We don’t have room in our lives to wait, and impatience seems to be pouring out of us like water running out of a broken hose. Broken, because that is what happens when we are not willing to wait. We run ahead until we hit a wall, and then something breaks—often inside of us.

• We don’t wait on a relationship to mend, and so we walk away.
• We don’t wait on our job to get better and leave before God moves on our behalf.
• We don’t wait to make purchases because we want something now and our credit card debt keeps mounting.

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint. 

And yet what I have learned when I wait is that God will move and He will strengthen me and renew me in the waiting. Sometimes He wants me to learn to trust HIm. Sometimes He simply wants me to rest. Let’s take a moment together and do a word study. I think it will help us understand the value of waiting.

The word for wait in Hebrew is Quavah. It means to bind together like a cord; a twisting of rope weaving thin threads to form the rope. The more strands twisted together, the stronger the rope.

A three-stranded cord cannot easily be broken (Ecclesiastes 4:12-13 read)

A piece of string cannot lift much weight, but a cord of twisted string together can lift hundreds of pounds. The rope’s strength comes from the strands working together.

The word for renew in the Isaiah passage means to pass through; to pass over, to alter, change, or exchange.

So putting all of this together:

Those who wait on the Lord will have all aspects of their lives intertwined or bound together like a thread twisted into rope. Waiting produces strength. 

The secret place (place where you pray and spend time with God) becomes the threshold where you wait and seek His guidance, intervention, and wisdom. It is not wasted time at all! It is the most important time of your day.

My soul waits patiently upon the Lord for my expectation is from Him. (Psalm 62:5-8)

The secret place is a time machine transporting us from our time zone to God’s time zone. Here we step into the eternal—getting His perspective as we wait.

And finally the closer you get to God, the more you realize that He is not in a hurry. Those who step into God’s time zone will not feel pressed to make quick decisions recognizing that it’s better not to get ahead of God.