They Will Mount Up

Reflection

Isaiah is honest about human limits. "Even youths grow faint and weary, and young men stumble and fall." Strength runs out. The fittest and most capable among us eventually hit the wall. If the promise of this passage were simply "try harder," it would collapse under the weight of our exhaustion. But the promise is different: "those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength." The renewal does not come from digging deeper into our own reserves. It comes from waiting on God — from the posture of dependence rather than self-reliance. The strength is received, not manufactured. Notice the unusual order of the images. We might expect it to build to a climax — walk, then run, then fly. Instead it descends: "they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not be faint." Perhaps that is deliberate. Soaring moments are wonderful but rare. Most of the Christian life is not flying; it is the long, ordinary walking — day after day, not growing faint. God promises strength for that quiet endurance too, not just for the mountaintop. If you are weary today, the answer is not more striving. It is to wait on the Lord, to bring your tiredness to him, and to receive the strength that only he can give — strength enough to keep walking, one faithful step at a time.