RENEW

Anyone else tired? We’re nearing the end of an insane year. A pandemic that just won’t quit and a tense election as the cherry on top. The more I tried to escape the news last week, I just found myself drowning in the hostility of it all. And I felt tired.

Mentally tired.

Emotionally tired.

Spiritually tired.

Physically tired.

Just plain tired.

I’m not here to give ANY political opinion. You can find plenty of that elsewhere. It doesn’t matter what “side” you find yourself on these days, I think (or maybe it’s just me), we can all say we’ve experienced a new level of exhaustion this past year. The kind of exhaustion that can’t be fixed by another cup of coffee or a few good nights of sleep (although I’m not against either ;)). 

It’s an exhaustion that usually accompanies hopelessness. Not seeing an end in sight to all the crazy. Wanting things to be better or at least how they were before. An exhaustion that doesn’t see a way out.

In my reading this week, I came across Isaiah 40 and found the verse below that I had underlined in some previous quiet time.

I love the way it begins with the questioning. I assume rhetoric (I even read it slightly sarcastically) given that the prophet Isaiah had been sharing similar news throughout his previous writings. It asks the question in a way that I feel like the Lord must look at us sometimes:

“Have you forgotten?“ or maybe with even more emphasis, “Have you forgotten…again?”

But as we grow tired from the chaos, we are reminded of this assurance: “He will not grow tired or weary”. 

As we question everything that is going on, we are reminded His ways are better: “his understanding no one can fathom”. 

No matter how many times we grow tired, He does not. 

No matter how many times we forget the Lord, He does not forget us. 

So where do we find our energy? In that truth.

So how do we persevere? In that truth.

The prophet Isaiah ends the chapter with this encouragement.

What you might not know, Isaiah is speaking to a group of people that were exiles and had everything taken away from them, but still, he tells them there is hope. 

You might feel like you’ve had a lot taken from you this year. Your energy and hope being at the top of the list. But one thing we cannot lose, our faith. It’s in that faith we take our hope back. We take back what God has already given us (and we have already forgotten again): a victory in Jesus name. 

“But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.” (v 31)

The good news: you can get your strength back, and not just any strength, strength from the Lord. 

You don’t have to wait on a vaccine or a president. You don’t have to wait on 2021 to “fix” everything (because let’s be honest, we can’t have a lot of high hopes that simply flipping the calendar will be a solution). 

But you can take back ground on your hope today by going to the Lord for your strength and finding peace that “He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom” (v 28). 

In full transparency, I’m terrible at memorizing scripture. It’s not something I grew up doing and I’m trying really hard now so I can have that truth on my heart and lead my girls towards truth. But one verse I have had memorized for about 10 years now and it’s one I remind myself of daily (and multiple times a day at that):

This world is broken, do not conform to it. Do not adjust to it and do not risk becoming like it.

HAVE HOPE. Renew your mind and be transformed. 

Find your strength. Your peace. Your identity. Take back what is yours and live out of it. Go to the Word, bow your knees in prayer, and remember where your hope comes. Be renewed by that truth. Be strengthened by it.

2020 doesn’t define you. This world doesn’t define you. It isn’t hopeless. You’re not hopeless. 

Renew your strength by remembering the One that does define you and have your heart restored in the process. Once you remember that, live in confidence and with expectation out of that truth alone.