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Soaring to New Heights
By Loren M. Chamberlain
These are inspiring words. Even the strongest will at times become weary but God’s power and strength never diminishes. God is only a prayer away. He is never too tired, weary or so busy He can’t help us and listen to us when we pour out our hearts to Him in prayer. A key principle in these verses is “hope, or waiting upon the Lord.” To hope or wait upon the Lord is to be expecting His promised strength to help us rise above life’s difficulties. Listening to God helps us be prepared for when He speaks to us, be patient when He asks us to wait, and expect Him to fulfill the promises found in His word.
Because of our human limits we can’t climb Mount Everest by ourselves. To perform such a task would take a dedicated team backing us up. It is doubtful any one person will ever swim the Atlantic Ocean or be able to run at the speed of sixty miles an hour. We must accept the fact of human limits. But because of so-called-progress, that seems to give us more of everything at an ever-increasing speed, we attempt to exceed our human limitations in every area of our life. The plain truth is, people are collapsing in exhaustion, and do not have the faintest idea of what happened to them. It is possible for us to overload ourselves to the point of burnout, and when that happens we can loose our effectiveness.
Pushing The Limits
It has become the American way to push the limits as far as possible. Constantly spending more time, energy or money than we have and never taking time out to rest. It is an interesting fact that Jesus never seemed to be in a hurry. There is no indication He worked 24 hours a day. When Jesus went to sleep at night, He still hadn’t healed all the disease in Israel. He followed God’s plan and so He was perfectly effective.
Jesus accepted the fact He was human and had human limitations. He was aware of what it meant to prioritize and balance in light of these limits and how to focus on the most important things. Jesus is very concerned with the quality of our lives. He calls us to be fruitful but He also realizes that busyness is not always godliness. Most certainly He wants us to be fruitful but He is also concerned that our fruit remain and not burn out.
Dodging Burnout
From the beginning, rest had a special significance to God. “By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all His work” (Genesis 2:2). Our world is an action oriented one. Yet God demonstrated that “rest” is appropriate and right. If God Himself rested from His work, then it should not amaze us that we need rest as well. Jesus also demonstrated this principle when He and His disciples left in a boat to get away from the crowds. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, He said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31). This time of rest that God gave us refreshes us for times of service.
We must understand God never leads us into an intolerable scramble of over worked feverishness. We will gain more time by understanding God’s will for our lives than by using all the time saving methods ever devised.
Vitality For The Weary
To those who are weak and tired, God gives strength, power and vigor. As the Apostle Paul said, “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10). Boys may become tired and weary. Even vigorous young men (or chosen athletes) may become like those in a cross-country race who cannot make it and weakly totter and fall.
But we who hope, or wait for the Lord, are the ones who do not attempt to go in our own strength. Instead, we continue trusting in Him for help. Then when God moves, we move along with Him. We keep gaining new strength. We mount up on wings like eagles mounting over circumstances. We run and do not get weary; we walk and do not get tired. God is indeed our complete source of strength, both physical and spiritual. God will surely help us to soar to new heights! i
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