Waiting on God: The Active Exchange of Strength

Pastor James Cole

It is uh, it is Thursday morning, and I, I don't know about you, but right about now is when that mid week slump likes to settle into the bones. The initial momentum of Monday and Tuesday is just, well, it is gone, and you might find yourself sitting in what I call the waiting room of life. Maybe you are waiting for a medical report to come back, or waiting for a fractured relationship to finally show some sign of healing, or just waiting for a hard, heavy season to pass. We tend to treat these seasons like the waiting room at the dentist. You know the feeling. You are tapping your foot, flipping through an old magazine, just waiting for your name to be called so the real thing can start. We think waiting is passive. We think it is empty time, just sort of lost to the void. But, um, but when we look at the scriptures, especially that famous passage in Isaiah forty, verse thirty one, those who wait upon the Lord, the word there is not passive at all.

Pastor James Cole

The Hebrew word translated as wait is qavah, and it is related to qav, which means cord or rope. Now, think about that. A rope is not just a single, weak thread. To make a rope, you take these tiny, fragile individual threads, and you twist them. You bind them together. That is qavah. It is the active, physical process of twisting and weaving. So when Isaiah talks about waiting on the Lord, he is not picturing you sitting on your hands in a plastic chair. He is picturing us actively twisting our weak, single stranded days into the massive, unbreakable rope of God's presence. Every prayer, every moment of trusting when it is hard, it is another twist of the cord. You are not wasting time; you are being woven into something that cannot snap.

Pastor James Cole

But then, you know, we, we have to ask, what happens to our own weakness while we are doing this weaving? The verse goes on to say they shall renew their strength. And this is where the Hebrew gets incredibly beautiful. The word translated renew is chalaph. But chalaph does not mean to repair or patch up. It literally means to cause to pass through, or to exchange. In the Old Testament, chalaph is the word used for changing your clothes. In Genesis forty one, verse fourteen, when Joseph is pulled out of the dungeon to see Pharaoh, the text says he shaved and changed his garments, he chalaphed his clothes. He took off the tattered, dirty rags of the prison and put on the clean robes of the palace. That is what God is offering you today. He is not asking you to pump yourself up or dig deep to find more of your own tattered strength. He is asking for a trade. You give Him your frayed, worn out striving, and He exchanges it. He clothes you in His own strength.

Pastor James Cole

So as you go about your day today, maybe on your commute or while you are washing the dishes, try a simple practice. Take a deep breath. Identify just one frayed thread of worry you are holding onto, maybe a difficult conversation you are dreading. Picture yourself handing that thread over, and consciously receiving His garment of peace instead. Let is pray. Lord, for the person listening right now who is just so tired of trying to hold it all together, we ask for the grace of the exchange. Take our frayed threads, our prison garments of worry and exhaustion, and clothe us in your peace. Weave our fragile lives into your unbreakable rope today. Amen. Go in peace today, my friend. Talk to you soon.