On one hand, absolutely nothing has changed.
On the other hand, everything feels different.
What does “exceedingly and abundantly more than we can ask or imagine” feel like? Is this it? Am I here? If it’s not going to be according to my expectations, then how do I know when it happens? Because this isn’t exactly what I expected Ephesians 3:20 to feel like.
Which is, I daresay, kinda the point. “If you can dream it, you can do it”… isn’t that what we tell kids? But if we can think it in our own minds, what room have we left for God to do the impossible?
What would happen if we left our imaginations in the hands of the One who formed us and went about our lives fixated on Him – the object of our faith – instead of fixating on the outcomes?
When someone whose faith you admire (and whose willingness to pour into your life with Jesus is impossible to miss) tells you that something not the result of your own strength is coming, you might be tempted to think, “Well then what’s the point? If I can’t do anything to bring about this outcome, then why do anything at all?”
No? Just me? Cool. Anyway…
What does Ephesians 3:20 feel like? If it’s not going to be according to our expectations, then how do we know when it happens?
I decided to wait. To rest. On South Beach. For a week.
But then I had to come home because my bank account and American Airlines told me to, and I was shocked to learn that nothing had happened in my week of waiting. Everything was the same except for my now-sunkissed skin.
Ok fine… sunburned skin… but it turned to tan for like a minute before it peeled, leaving me with only the bottle of L’Oreal Summer Bronzing Foam as a cheap substitute. I digress…
In the day or so of downtime before heading back to work, I did a quick mental google search for all of the scriptures I’d committed to memory which pertain to waiting. Isaiah 40:31 was the first to pop up:
Yet those who wait for the Lord
Will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary. [Isaiah 40:31, NASB]
What would happen if we just went about our lives being fixated on the Object of our faith instead of the outcomes?
Now, here comes a lesson on why good Bible study matters…
Based on this verse and my own understanding of the English language, I was failing at this waiting thing. My strength is not renewed. Physically, sure. But the thought of continuing in what can only be described as a perpetual season of spiritual waiting doesn’t feel very eagle-like.
I’m a crow at best, and a noisy one at that.
*Caw* How much longer, Lord? *Caw* been in this wilderness long enough *Caw Caw*
He has to be so over me at this point, and you know what, God? Same.
So let’s just do a double check here. When it comes to applying scripture, Am I doing it wrong, or am I just reading it wrong? A mastery of modern American English isn’t really helpful when you’re reading a translation from classical Hebrew. I dug deeper…
In Hebrew, the word means exactly what you’d think: to wait; to tarry. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. We have to understand the whole thing – usage and all. We can’t just stop at what’s familiar. If we do, we miss the best part. Like this part:
The word also means to gather together; to bind.
When it comes to applying scripture, are we doing it incorrectly, or are we just reading it incorrectly?
Isaiah uses this word several times in his writing – fifteen to be exact. And in nine of those fifteen instances, the implication is to look for or to be eagerly expectant, hopeful.
Let’s try this again, shall we?
Yet those who are bound together with the Lord…
Who eagerly expect of Him…
Who look for Him…
Those who hope in the Lord…
will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary.
Okay, Isaiah, now you’re speaking my language.
For those of us who are hardwired for activity – the ones who get. stuff. done. – waiting can be torture. I’m talking about those of us who sit on the couch watching a show while also playing a game on the phone because idle hands are a no-go.
We don’t wait very well. Not because we don’t want to, but because there’s a fear that if we don’t do it (whatever ‘it’ is), then it won’t get done. And we refuse to be the reason something doesn’t get finished.
Ours is the work of being wholly bound together with a Holy God.
A task both demanding and worthy of the wait.
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