Why do you complain, Jacob?  Why do you say, Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God”?

Do you not know?  Have you not heard?  The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.  Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.  Isaiah 40

We human beings are persistent “hopers.”  We are created like that, unlike any other creature!  That capacity to hope is essential to a full life. Without hope we simply collapse in on ourselves. No other creature in the universe has this capacity, yea, the capacity and compulsion to hope. We are born to hope and if we find nothing to hope in or for, we are dead before we die.  I believe we are created to hope in God but that need to hope can take us down ungodly paths, driven by hope.  We can hope in our own wits, in our ability to figure things out and fix them, in our family or friends, in our many nations, in the financial institutions, in education, in the genius of mankind, and so forth.  Either we hope or we die. It is as simple as that.

Now, soul, remember that if you hope in anything or anyone other than God, our Savior and Lord, disappointment will dog you all your life. God is the only sure foundation for hope. Hopelessness or chasing false hopes depletes life, kills us, so to speak, a spiral downward.  I need to remember that those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.  

It is Lent.  We think of Jesus’ dark days, horrible beyond thinking. He was so weak there on the Cross that he could not even swish away a fly from his face.  He knows our weakness.  He also knows that the night will pass, the day will last forever. On Resurrection Morn he stands as victor over the grave, over death, and announces that he opened the door to life by his sacrificial death and invites us in.  He uses the simile here of soaring as an eagle, running as a marathoner, as walking on the pathways of life, without a hint of weariness, but buoyed by an internal hope that hopes in God!  Alone.