Wings Like Eagles

But those who wait on 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 40:31

We want things done in our own time; but when we realize that God loves us and that we are important to Him, we can know that He requires patience. God’s timing is better than ours. He always answers prayers. He might say “yes”; He might say “no.” (And, according to Jimmy Carter, He might say “You’ve got to be kidding.”) But very often, His response is “yes, but not now.” If we recognize how important we are to God, we will realize that what He is actually telling us is “Yes, but I love you too much to give you your prayer prematurely.”

Sometimes I think that God delays answering prayers simply because He wants us to learn, for our own good, to depend upon him. In Hebrew (ruach) and Greek (pneuma), the word for “wind” and the word for “spirit” are the same. And thus, when Isaiah wrote that we shall mount up with wings like eagles, there is some wordplay going on. God’s spirit is to us like the wind is to the great soaring birds. They do not even have to flap their wings to rise higher and higher.

Usually when we read in Scripture about a great victory by one of the saints, or Christ Himself, the event is the culmination of a long period. God works on a long clock. He took 1500 years to train the Hebrews for the coming of Christ, and the church age has been going on for 2000 years.

We have to learn to wait upon God. We have faith in Him, so we can trust His timing to be correct. Impatience is an attribute of children, and God seems to be waiting for some sort of maturity to be reached over a period of time before Christ comes again. So the word for the day: Be patient. All good things will come to us, when the time is right.

Lord God, give me patience in all things; teach me to trust you completely, including the timing of all things to come. Amen.