Renew Their Strength

The Ground

Notice the order Isaiah gives here, which runs backward from what you might expect. Mounting up with wings as eagles, the most dramatic image, comes first. Running without weariness comes second. Walking without fainting, the most ordinary and least glamorous of the three, comes last. Sometimes the hardest strength to receive is the strength simply to keep walking.

This matters for a fallow season, because fallow ground rarely produces eagle-flight, and it often does not even produce sustained running. Most days in unresolved waiting look like walking, ordinary, unremarkable, ground still covered rather than soaring above it. Isaiah includes this ordinary walking specifically in the promise, not as a lesser strength but as real strength renewed.

Notice also the source: they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength. This is not strength generated through willpower or manufactured through positive thinking. It is renewed, meaning given again, sourced outside the one waiting, available specifically to those who wait upon him rather than trying to power through in their own reserves.

If today feels like walking rather than soaring, ordinary rather than dramatic, this promise still applies. Renewed strength for the walk is exactly what is offered here, not a lesser consolation, but the promise’s own quiet, sustaining center.