To Walk and Not Faint
(I’ve invited friends to share their own stories of endurance or the stories of others. My prayer is that you would be inspired and encouraged as you read each guest post. Learn more about my new book: Sacred Endurance.)
By Lisa Spence
I am weary. It’s been a particularly busy few weeks, with an out-of-town trip and a full calendar. However, I feel a weariness in my soul as well, a spiritual fatigue that extends beyond needing a nap, though that too may help!
Loss, grief, transition—all have been part of my experience this past year, and all these experiences weary the heart as well as the body. As does the seemingly dull ordinariness of my days. My life, so it often appears to me, is passing by in a blur of mundane monotony.
Sometimes I feel bored. Sometimes I am convinced nothing will ever change and I’m heading nowhere. Sometimes I want to give up. Sometimes I see the thriving, growing ministries of others and their jubilant confidence in the call and provision of God, and sometimes I doubt.
“For you have need of endurance,” Hebrews 10:36 declares (esv), and in some strange way I am comforted. The Bible is clear and uncompromising in its assertion of my weakness, and this is good news to me in my weariness. Life is indeed hard and wearying and, yes, maybe sometimes boring. Grief, transition, the sheer dailiness of my days, each and every day—it is all too much for me. I need endurance.
Isaiah 40:30 echoes this truth:
Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted.
Even those among us with the most strength and vitality grow weary! Life is too much and too hard for us all. We are all weak. Whatever strength you and I may have, it will not be enough. We have need of endurance.
How I love the promise of Isaiah 40:31:
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.
It’s the latter part of the verse I cling to most days, those days of walking, plodding along, one foot in front of the other, my surroundings changing only imperceptibly and oh, so slowly. There in the slow, ponderous days of walking, the Lord meets me with the promise of the endurance I lack. Glory to God, I will walk and not faint—I will endure—as I wait for the Lord.
Here, then, is the key to overcoming my weariness: waiting for the Lord. Hebrews 12:3 instructs us to “consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.” To fight weariness, to endure, we consider Jesus. We wait for Him.
To wait for the Lord isn’t like me waiting at the doctor’s office, my boredom and irritation escalating with each minute I am forced to wait. To wait for the Lord is to lift my focus up and away from me and from my circumstances and fix my eyes on Jesus, to believe that He is sufficient and sovereign. All is well and all will be well because it is Jesus who holds me, Jesus who keeps me.
As I consider Jesus and wait for Him, I remember the gospel. Jesus loves me, He died for me, and in Him I am a new creation, forgiven and redeemed and accepted. This is what is most true about me, and rehearsing these truths fuels my endurance. My circumstances, my failures, my insufficiencies—none of these define me. Throwing off these hindrances and looking to Jesus, remembering the gospel, helps me endure.
As I consider Jesus and wait for Him, I remember He too suffered. He sees and knows my struggle. He is able to sympathize.
Many years ago a friend gifted me a book. On the flyleaf she wrote, “To Lisa, because she walks a similar path.” It seems like such a small thing, but it encouraged me so much. I wasn’t walking alone! Being seen and known motivates perseverance.
As I consider Jesus and wait for Him, I remember my future hope. One day my faith, small as it so often is, will be sight.
Several months ago my church grieved the loss of a dear saint. Miss Patty lived a life of faithful service, humbly caring for her home and her family for decades. To my knowledge, she never lived outside our small town. She had no career, no platform, and she would have laughed at the idea of being an influencer. Her favorite hymn was “It Is Well with My Soul,” and she lived her life—she endured—according to that very confidence. Waiting for the Lord, she walked and did not grow faint. Now, in the presence of the God she loved, she soars.
As I consider Jesus and wait for Him, I realize that every part of my life—the small, the mundane, the monotonous—is opportunity for worship.
I’m not overspiritualizing here; cleaning the bathrooms is still cleaning the bathrooms. However, when I clean the bathrooms in the realization that as I serve my family in this task, I am serving the Lord, I can persevere in it. I daresay I can even find joy in it. So too with all the seemingly unimportant details of my life. They are opportunities to love Jesus by loving others, and thus I endure.
This past Sunday we sang of the faithfulness of God to hold and keep:
When I fear my faith will fail,
Christ will hold me fast;
When the tempter would prevail,
He can hold me fast. . . .
I could never keep my hold,
He will hold me fast;
For my love is often cold;
He must hold me fast.*
Praise God, He holds me fast. By His grace, I endure.
Lisa Spence lives in Alabama where she teaches a Sunday School class at her church, leads a community Bible study for women, and volunteers at the local crisis pregnancy center. She and her husband, Randy, have four sons and two daughters-in-law. Lisa blogs occasionally at lisafspence.home.blog
***
Scriptures quoted in this post are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
*Ada Habershon, 1861–1918, adapted)
RELATED CONTENT
