Daily Lesson for January 10, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Isaiah 40 verses 28 and 31:

28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30 Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
31 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.

Now here is such a beautiful and uplifting Scripture and a promise of the LORD's abiding strength in times of struggle.

Yet, even in all it's beauty, John Claypool, one of my boyhood pastors and a prolific writer, first called my attention to the peculiar way this beloved Scripture ends.

We would expect a rising crescendo -- a word of encouragement which ascends always, empowering our feeble legs to walk, and then run and then, finally, fly -- soar like eagles.

But in fact the opposite order is given.  There is soaring, and then running, and then finally there is walking.

And that may be the greatest miracle -- at the end and by God's strength to simply put one foot in front of another.

For all those struggling just to take small steps today, may you wait on the LORD and may He renew and increase your strength and help you to walk and not faint.

It may not seem like much; but for those who are weary it is everything.