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.
—Isaiah 40:31
Our waiting on God will depend greatly on our faith of what He is. In our text, we have the close of a passage in which God reveals Himself as the everlasting and almighty One. It is as that revelation enters into our soul that the waiting will become the spontaneous expression of what we know Him to be—a God altogether most worthy to be waited upon.
Listen to the words, “Why sayest thou, O Jacob…My way is hid from the Lord…? Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?” (Isaiah 40:27–28). So far from it: “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint…and the young men shall utterly fall” (verses 29–30). And consider that “the glory of young men is their strength” (Proverbs 20:29). All that is deemed strong with man shall come to nothing. “But they that wait upon the Lord,” on the Everlasting One, who does not faint, and is not weary, they “shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and”—listen now, they will be strong with the strength of God, and, even as He, they will “not be weary; and they shall walk, and” even as He, they will “not faint.”
Yes, “they shall mount up with wings as eagles.” You know what eagles’ wings mean. The eagle is the king of birds; it soars the highest into the heavens. Believers are to live a heavenly life, in the very presence and love and joy of God. They are to live where God lives; they need God’s strength to rise there. It will be given to them that wait on Him.
You know how the eagles’ wings are obtained. Only in one way—by the eagle birth. You are born of God. You have the eagles’ wings. You may not have known it; you may not have used them; but God can and will teach you how to use them.