ShePonders: Renewable Energy
Feeling tired? Exhausted, rather? What does God have to say about work, energy and finding strength?
By Kelley Johnson-Nikondeha
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<<<Growing Wings>>>
Click on the link above to Listen to Kelley’s beautiful voice, sharing this month’s ShePonders: Renewable Energy
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“I’m so exhausted!” she exclaimed. And she’s not the only one in my world feeling this way these days. Amid the cacophony of life, I can hear this chorus in surround sound:
“I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted.”
One has to wonder if there is ample energy for this life … or is perpetual exhaustion the new normal?
Pursuing the “American Dream”—or any equivalent thereof—is tiring. We have jobs to do and salaries to earn, things to buy and spaces we must organize to store it all. We have images to maintain and people to impress and expectations to meet–every day. We try to maximize our time, right? We text our boss, our spouse or our sister, while standing in line at the grocery store. At a stoplight we check our email on our smart (and rather demanding) phone. We juggle our schedules and stuff the week full of places to be and people to see. But we often arrive–exhausted.
Is this a sustainable way to live?
I wonder: Does God have anything to say to our current state of exhaustion?
The Promise
Isaiah gives us a glimpse into the intent and imagination of God:
“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.
He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even the youthful will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;
But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall grow wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
The prophet asks the people if they have really heard the news about their God … unlike the other gods in the surrounding land of Babylon, their God has created the cosmos and holds all knowledge and He still never faints or even grows the least bit weary. He generates inexhaustible energy, this God of ours!
As a matter of fact, the Hebrew text is even more emphatic than the English translation. The Hebrew grammar reveals that He cannot faint and cannot grow weary–according to the strong grammar it is impossible for God to be exhausted! A stunning description of Yahweh right from the start.
And God empowers the fainting ones, allowing them to stay on their feet a bit longer without passing out. He renews their wavering strength. Here again, the Hebrew words help us see the force of this poetry. The word for “strength” in Hebrew is the word used seven times in Exodus to describe the overwhelming fertility of the Israelites (“But the Israelites were fruitful and prolific; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.” Ex. 1:7) A variation of the word “strength” is used seven times in one sentence – the perfect number. Seven, to demonstrate complete generative strength. So, the picture that is given: God gives complete and sustainable strength to the powerless. Amazing, right?
Fresh young athletes
The picture the poet paints is of fresh young athletes training and young untrained boys (this is the ancient world, so we are dealing with masculine pronouns here) are also in view–even with all the training and all the youthful energy at their disposal, they will absolutely faint and fall exhausted. According to the grammar, it is inevitable. No way out-–you are bound for exhaustion. But…
But those who wait for Yahweh can anticipate another fate. Those who wait–not twiddling their thumbs or playing Angry Birds on their iPhone killing time until the sky train doors open–-but those who wait poised like a runner on the starting line, waiting with anticipation for the starting gun to pop, they will get renewable energy from God!
Exchange
But wait–there’s more! The word used for this divine “renewal” of strength is not just a renewing of our depleted energy tank, filling up our worn-out wine skins, as it were. But it is exchanging strengths – we give up our inevitable exhaustion for God’s inexhaustible energy! It is like taking off our sweat pants and putting on a power suit, exchanging and “changing up” to a better kind of energy altogether!
And so when we wait on Yahweh, we will exchange our feeble strength for His generative, inexhaustible and ever renewable energy. Instead of growing weary, we grow wings! We will run and walk with no fear of fainting. Our expectant waiting on the God who cannot be exhausted will yield access to endlessly renewable energy–what an amazing promise.
The Practical Side
But let’s be honest–we do get exhausted. So, does that mean we are not waiting with expectation and readiness for God? Does it mean we are yet again failing some spiritual litmus test–our exhaustion revealing another shortcoming?
First, a few reminders are in order. We are to obey Sabbath, an actual work stoppage order. One day a week we are literally meant to not work! God asked us to do this to remember that no matter how much we do or produce, provision is His realm and He sustains us even when we do nothing.
Sabbath is the weekly practice that reminds us that God is provider, lest we be fooled into thinking that we control the provisions in our life. How many of us really practice Sabbath anymore? So many of us work 24/7–tethered to our phones and laptops, never stopping. It is as if we are still in the brickyards of Pharaoh, a slave to quotas and production lists.
But: We’ve been invited to live by a different Kingdom rule …
While we are confessing–let’s come clean about another thing. We do worry about what we eat, what we wear and where we will sleep at night. We expend energy on all these things, like everyone else around us. Our consumerism keeps us spinning anxious energy– “do I have enough?” This is energy that is wasted. Jesus has recommended that we stop with the anxiety and worry and instead trust Him for provision. It is really an echo of Sabbath … recognizing that all our frenetic energy does not secure our future, only God can do such a thing.
I think that most of my exhaustion comes from trying to make my own way in the world, provide for myself the American Dream of comfort and more upon more stuff. I expend great amounts of energy on it. But I am slowly learning that I do so at my own peril, because I am easily and often found depleted and in need of an energy infusion. Truth is, I was never meant to work so hard on shaping this kind of life. If I believe the words of Scripture, I am designed to oscillate between labor and rest, trusting in God’s provision. (Still waters and green pastures are allowed!) I am to be partnering with Him in the restoration of the world, using my energy toward Gospel goodness. (I really could learn a few things from the lilies of the field and the birds of the air.)
Just recalculating my direction and recalibrating my pace could be a great beginning to stripping down the expenditure of my limited energy.
But the question remains–can we follow Jesus and be exhausted?
The Poetry
When Isaiah wrote this vision of renewable energy–he wrote to the exiles in Babylon. After generations lived away from Jerusalem, they learned that God was planning to restore them to their homeland. So Isaiah tells these tired and weary people that there will be energy for homecoming! There will be a grand reversal–and all their fatigue will be exchanged for limitless energy for the journey back to Jerusalem. They will have energy for the road home … even if they have to grow wings!
It is potent poetry—there will be renewable energy after all these years of exhaustion. It is a promise, it is a poem and it is what awaits us!
So will we be exhausted? Yes, this side of Eden we will continue to experience exhaustion. But we do so knowing we are not doomed to perpetual exhaustion forever. There’s another future that has been promised to us–renewable energy. And as we wait on Yahweh, as we practice such poised readiness, there will be moments this side of eternity when we will feel the surge of that renewable energy through our very cellular structure. It will happen in those moments when we are not anxiously scrambling about to provide for ourselves but when we are lost in the pursuit of His Kingdom justice on earth.
The good news of this prophetic poem is that we will not forever be exhausted–there is renewable energy to come. There is a reversal afoot. There will be energy for us on the road home. This is God’s intent, according to Isaiah. Our new normal will, one day, involve growing wings!
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Any thoughts or comments? We’d love to hear what you think.
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About Kelley:
Kelley Johnson Nikondeha is co-director of Amahoro Africa and international staff member of Community of Faith with her husband Claude. She’s a thinker, connector, advocate, avid reader and mother of two beautiful children. Kelley lives between Arizona and Burundi. She loves handwritten letters, homemade pesto and anything written by Walter Brueggemann.
