Recently at Mittagong Anglican Church we had a Moore College mission come for a week.On the second Sunday of the mission, immediately before the last service of the day at 6pm, one of the students came up to me and said that he had been praying with a group before the previous service when he felt God give him 'a word' for me.
He said this usually wasn't his thing. I said to him in a sigh of exhaustion, 'Is it bad?' He said 'No!' and then quoted these verses from the Bible:
He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:28-31
I found this greatly encouraging just a few seconds before I led the last service of the mission. It had been terribly exhausting over the week and I had felt beforehand as if I had no physical or emotional strength left to keep it all together. God was gracious and kind to remind me of that verse.
About 10 days later I was reading through Satisfy Your Soul by Bruce Demarest when I was stopped in my tracks by this passage from the book:
Have you ever wondered what it means to 'wait on the Lord'? I suggest that it is akin to practising the presence of God. Isaiah declares, 'Those who wait on the Lord will find new strength. they will fly high on wings like eagles. they will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint' (Isaiah 40:31).
So I have been really thinking hard and praying to 'wait on the Lord'. Since the mission finished I have still not recovered. I feel enormously exhausted still even 10 days later, especially emotionally.
New strength from God awaits.
