Christian Living
Is it just semantics or do people just use ‘wait on’ as a synonym of ‘wait for’? Is there even a difference between the two?
For so long I struggled to understand Isaiah 40:31.
“But those who wait on 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.”
Isaiah 40:31 NKJV
I mean, how is it possible to be waiting on someone and yet to be making progress? Is waiting not suggestive of a delay, inactivity, some kind of pause? So how is it that Isaiah 40:31 ascribes meaningful locomotive progress to waiting?
It may be alright to read some sentences in a disjointed manner and still make sense of them, try that with other sentences and you lose the entire meaning of what is being said.
According to the dictionary, to ‘wait‘ means “to allow time to go by, especially while staying in one place without doing very much, until someone comes, until something that you are expecting happens or until you can do something.” To ‘wait on‘ means ‘to serve ( as in a waiter or attendant at a table or restaurant), to wait for a particular event, piece of information etc before doing something or making a decision.‘ To ‘wait for‘ something or someone means expecting something to happen or expecting someone before taking an action.‘
Turn it any way around, these words or phrases do not completely explain Isaiah 40:31. However, we can make some inferences…
Going by the above dictionary meanings, we can say that ‘wait’ has a strong connection to;
- Expectation
- Faith
- Trust
- Hope
- Patience
- Endurance
Putting all these together, Isaiah 40:31 can very well read as “those who trust in the Lord {in hope and expectation}, shall have their strengths renewed, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint”
Trust is about confidence in something or someone, it is about commitment, conviction, being persuaded..
To be hoping for something, means faith has been engaged because there is already an image of something created in the mind which hope acts as an anchor for. Patience, endurance and active persistence brings this image to reality.
But faith doesn’t just stay dormant or in a state of inactivity, it doesn’t just wait as the dictionary meaning of wait would suggest. No, faith moves, faith acts, faith speaks.
“For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”
James 2:26 NKJV
I believe it is faith that brings about the renewed strength, growing of new feathers, running and walking we read of in Isaiah 40:31.
To wait on the Lord could never mean to stay in a state of inactivity.
This new week, wait on the Lord. Trust Him. Trust Him, in your job, career, studies, business, relationships, for your healing and health, etc. And may that trust breed faith in you, fully anchored on hope and expectancy, to take God-inspired actions, that are sustained by patience, endurance and active persistence. Victory is inevitable!
