Day 18 of Her New Beginning: 31 Days of Healing, Identity, Renewal and Purpose
Isaiah 40:31 KJV
“But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”
There is a kind of tiredness that sleep does not completely fix. You can go to bed early, sleep through the night and still wake up feeling as though something inside you has been running for years. Sometimes it is not the body that is most exhausted. The mind is tired from thinking, the emotions are tired from carrying disappointment, faith has been stretched through a long season of waiting, and the heart has spent so much time being strong that it has almost forgotten what it feels like to be refreshed.
I think this is one reason Isaiah 40:31 is such a beautiful promise. God does not look at weary people and simply tell them to try harder. He promises renewal. There are seasons when “try harder” is the last thing a woman needs to hear because she has already tried. She has prayed, adjusted, worked, waited, smiled, encouraged herself and kept going. She does not necessarily need another speech about becoming stronger. She needs another source of strength.
Isaiah tells us where that source is found: “They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength.”
There Is Strength Beyond Your Own
We often celebrate strong women, and there is nothing wrong with strength. Scripture is filled with courageous women. Yet biblical strength is not the ability to need nobody. God never designed us to live as though dependence were weakness.
Paul writes in Ephesians 6:10, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.” That little phrase changes everything. He does not merely say, “Be strong.” He says, “Be strong in the Lord.”
There is strength that comes from personality, experience and discipline, but there is also strength that comes from God. The danger comes when we spend years drawing only from ourselves and then become surprised when the reservoir begins to run low.
Sometimes reaching the end of your own strength is not the end of the story. It may be the beginning of discovering another supply.
Paul understood this when the Lord told him in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” Weakness is uncomfortable because it exposes the places where we are not enough, but those places can become invitations to experience the sufficiency of God.
There have been moments when I have wanted God simply to make me stronger, while He was teaching me to depend on Him more deeply. Those are not always the same thing. If God only increased my natural ability to carry everything myself, I might become stronger and more independent at the same time. Sometimes His greater gift is teaching us where our strength was always supposed to come from.
What Does It Mean to Wait Upon the Lord?
Waiting on God is often misunderstood as doing nothing. We imagine someone sitting quietly while life passes by, hoping God eventually decides to do something. But biblical waiting carries the idea of expectation, dependence and confident trust.
Waiting upon the Lord means that the weight of my expectation is resting upon Him.
This matters because we can spend enormous amounts of strength waiting on other things. We wait for someone’s approval. We wait for a phone call. We wait for money to arrive. We wait for somebody to change. We wait for an opportunity, an apology or a door to open. When the thing we are waiting for delays, our emotions rise and fall with it.
Isaiah redirects our expectation. “They that wait upon the LORD” are the ones whose strength is renewed.
This does not mean we stop taking practical steps. Waiting upon God is not an excuse for passivity. You can send the application, prepare for the opportunity, have the necessary conversation and continue doing what wisdom requires while refusing to make panic your strategy.
Sometimes we are exhausting ourselves because we are trying to force what should be entrusted.
There is a difference between movement and striving. Faith can move while the heart remains at rest because it knows that the outcome does not depend entirely upon human effort.
The Exchange of Strength
The promise says they “shall renew their strength.” This is more than God telling a tired woman to squeeze another little bit of energy out of herself. There is an exchange taking place. Human weakness encounters divine supply.
That is why we should never be ashamed to tell God we are tired.
We do ourselves no favour by pretending before the One who already knows. God is not standing in Heaven saying, “I thought she was stronger than this.” He knows exactly what this season has required from you. He knows the conversations nobody heard, the decisions you had to make, the disappointment you swallowed, the responsibilities you carried and the nights when your mind refused to become quiet.
Psalm 61:2 says, “When my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”
I love the honesty of that verse. David did not say his heart could never become overwhelmed. He knew where to go when it did.
Strength is not pretending you are never overwhelmed. Sometimes strength is knowing where to take yourself when you are.
Mounting Up With Wings as Eagles
Isaiah gives us the beautiful picture of an eagle: “They shall mount up with wings as eagles.”
An eagle knows how to use currents stronger than itself. It does not reach every height through frantic effort. It spreads its wings and allows the current to carry it upward.
There is a picture of grace in that.
Some of us have spent too long spiritually flapping.
We have tried to make everything happen through effort. We have assumed that if something is not moving, we simply need to push harder. If we are tired, we need more determination. If a door is closed, perhaps we should knock another seventy-three times just in case Heaven did not hear the first seventy-two.
But there are heights effort alone cannot reach.
Zechariah 4:6 says, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.”
There comes a place where a woman has to recognise that grace can carry what effort cannot. This does not produce laziness. It produces dependence. You still spread your wings, but you stop behaving as though the wind came from you.
New Strength May Arrive Quietly
Sometimes we expect renewed strength to feel dramatic. We imagine waking up one morning feeling powerful enough to conquer the world before breakfast. God certainly can refresh us suddenly, but new strength does not always arrive with dramatic emotion.
Sometimes strength looks like having enough courage for today’s conversation. Sometimes it is being able to pray again after disappointment made prayer difficult. It may be enough peace to sleep tonight, enough clarity to make one decision or enough hope to believe that tomorrow does not have to look like yesterday.
Do not despise strength because it arrived quietly.
Elijah experienced dramatic fire on Mount Carmel, but in the next chapter God also ministered to him through rest, food, a journey and a still small voice. The same God who answers by fire knows how to restore a tired servant gently.
Perhaps you have been waiting for strength to arrive as a feeling when God has already been giving it to you as grace for each day.
You thought you would never survive that season, yet you are here.
You thought that disappointment would finish you, yet something inside you is beginning to hope again.
You thought you had no strength left, yet somehow there has been enough for the next step.
That “somehow” may have been grace all along.
You Will Rise Again
Isaiah does not end with weariness. It gives us movement: “They shall mount up… they shall run… they shall walk.”
Renewal produces movement again.
Perhaps you entered this season feeling as though you had nothing left. Do not make weariness your identity. You are tired; you are not finished. There is a difference.
God may not simply restore you to the woman you were before the difficult season. He can bring you out carrying a different kind of strength, one that has learned dependence, wisdom, patience and grace. You may rise softer in some places, stronger in others and far less interested in proving anything.
There is strength available for the woman you are becoming.
So wait upon the Lord. Bring Him your weakness without embarrassment. Allow Him to become your source again. You do not have to finish this season with the same strength with which you entered it.
The God who renews strength is not asking an exhausted woman to manufacture wings. He is inviting her to trust the wind of His grace and rise.
Prayer
Father, You know every place where I have become weary. You know the responsibilities, disappointments, battles and waiting seasons that have drained my strength. I bring my weakness honestly before You and refuse to make self-effort my only source. As I wait upon You, renew my strength. Teach me to depend upon Your grace and to recognise the strength You provide even when it comes quietly. Carry me where my own ability cannot take me, and breathe fresh courage, peace and hope into my heart. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Today’s Declaration
My strength is being renewed in the Lord. Weariness will not become my identity or determine the end of my story. I will wait upon God and draw from His strength rather than depending only upon my own. His grace is sufficient for me. I will rise again, run again and continue walking in what He has called me to do. I am not empty beyond restoration; divine strength is working in me. I am a Wonder Model Woman.