The prophet speaks those wonderful words of hope and encouragement: “Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.”

Like a lot of people, I try to be one who “waits for the Lord.” And like a lot of people I know what it means to have tired legs and a weary soul, still looking to mount up with wings like eagles.

My planning calendar is called a “Day Runner.” It has a graphic showing some harried little man racing through the week. Those weeks when I feel it is a picture of me, I remember the words of Steven Wright: “It’s not the pace of life that concerns me. It’s the sudden stop at the end.”

But, what a pace!

The alarm rings early and says “Enough sleeping, get busy.” Kids and spouse or partner, teachers and students, employer and colleagues and clients, friends and adversaries, dentists, doctors, and the cable guy—we throw all of them up into the air and start juggling another busy day.

One-seventh of us eat breakfast in our cars. Throughout the day at twenty after the hour the campus erupts with people racing to their next destination. We speed from commitment to commitment. 

Yes, there are those who have jumped off the treadmill in favor of a slower pace of life. Still, most of us would agree that there aren't enough hours in the day, that our calendars keep getting fuller. And is there anyone out there who has found they are less busy now that you are retired?

What was it that Woody Allen said? “Death is nature’s way of telling us to slow down.”

The prophet is right about our human condition: we wear out, we grow faint.

We worry that we are going through these busy days unknown, unseen by the living God.

In this concern we are connected with the ancient Israelites. At the time of Isaiah, some 500 years before the birth of Jesus, the people sensed that the promises and saving acts of God were things of the past, not present realities. They could not see God’s saving hand in the world of history or experience.[1] As we do today, ancient Israel cried out: “My way is hidden from the Lord.”

In our busy lives we continue to ask the question first put by Malcolm Boyd over forty years ago: “Are you running with me, Jesus?”

Certainly Jesus is running.

Look. We see him teaching in the synagogue, healing Peter's mother-in-law at home. We watch as the people crowd around him, seeking to be made whole. Then we listen as he says to those closest to him: “Let's move on from here. I've got more to do elsewhere. The good news of the nearness of God needs to be announced in other places as well.”

People of faith confess that Jesus was fully human and fully divine. Perhaps from our vantage point we can best understand the humanity of Jesus as we see his life caught up with the lives of friends and strangers in the hectic world around him.

Jesus is in the fast lane, running as we do.

Where is the good news in all of this?

Almost unnoticed.

In the morning while it is still dark, Jesus wakes up, goes to a deserted place. And there he prays. Watching, we see again not only his faithfulness as a first century Jew but his humanity. Here is a human life steeped in prayer. The Benedictine monks tell us “to work is to pray” and their lives also show that “to pray is to work.” Jesus says in the language of his actions “to live is to pray” and that “to pray is to live.”[2]

The poet speaks of God as the still point of the turning world. If we are to know that still point in a world that spins with dizzying speed, it will be through prayer.

The problems of prayer are many. Most of us are hampered by at least a few of them:

            a sense that God—if God exists at all—is remotely distant;

            the desire to keep large chunks of our lives hidden from God;

            the firm conviction that “I get nothing out of prayer;”

            the feeling that our words are not ‘good enough;”

and in case these are just my own problems, you can add your own here.

But if the problems of prayer are great, perhaps greater still are the possibilities of prayer.

Look at Jesus once more.

What do you see?

One who is running. And one who knows how to stop in a way that gives life.

We see someone who prays knowing that to live the creature needs to be in contact with the Creator. Through prayer he draws close to a source of strength and renewal—the God who “gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless.” There is no more powerful spiritual energy than prayer. Indeed, prayer’s power on the mind and body is measurable.

Look in the darkness of the early morning and you will see someone in the very middle of life seeking out the One who is the Author of Life. When we pray as we learn from Jesus, we are never removed from the rest of life with all its challenges and demands and opportunities.

In prayer we bring our anguished and honest and bold cries to God. The Hebrew Scriptures show God’s people setting their outrage and complaint before God, who is the source both of anguish and hope. And as Isaiah suggests, God answers on those terms, yet with divine freedom and wisdom.[3] One person put it this way: “Prayer is the language of the soul. When one learns to live this language, the windows of heaven fling wide open. When Jesus prayed, things happened. When we pray, things will also happen…Prayer anchors us to the eternal, and keeps our relationship with God fresh…”[4]

Isaiah often speaks of God as mysterious. That mystery, however, is not cause for us to lose faith in God’s care.

The prophet reminds us, in no uncertain terms, that we are not God. We are not the Creator, who is far greater than the creation.

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

It is God who sits above the circle of the earth,

and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;

who brings princes to naught,

and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.

            To whom, then, will you compare me,

            or who is my equal? says the Holy One.

When the calculations comparing our smallness with God’s greatness are finished, we can react to our position in the universe in several ways. We can slink away in despair. We can lash out in denial. Or we can rest in God’s great, saving love. Isaiah proclaimed—and the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus confirmed—that this God who is unequalled and beyond compare regards this creation with an equally incomparable love. God has no inconsequential creatures or untended corners of the universe. God tells us how precious not only we are in God’s sight, but how precious all of the creation is.

The God who brings princes to naught and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing also gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless—people like you and me.

And so we are encouraged to “wait for the Lord.” This implies a confidence that God will not desert God’s people. These words of the prophet are not to be confused with the tired argument that “God acts in God’s own good time”—for God constantly acts and all time is God’s time. As we trust in God, we find ourselves renewed in and for the present moment.[5]

To wait for the Lord means that we will act out of a sense of who we are and who God is—not confusing the two. We recognize our limitations and our abilities. To wait for the Lord means that we will continue to work for peace in a world that prefers for war. To wait for the Lord means that we will continue to open our doors to the homeless, we will continue to feed the hungry even as our economy creates more homeless and hungry people each week. To wait for the Lord means that we will continue to affirm the value of each person even as the voices of hate get louder. To wait for the Lord means that we will continue in our busy lives to love one another.

In all of our action we live out a faithful waiting, receiving the strength God provides.

It might not feel at all times like flying on the wings of eagles.

We might not even run very far.

But we will walk, at least, depending on the God who gives power to the powerless, depending on the Creator who will not abandon any of the Creation.

Chances are that our lives won’t slow down very much. What we need to do is find the pace that fits. We all have a different set of rhythms. The key is to find the set that works for you. And that takes some time, some listening.

Finding exactly how you work best is a moving target. And it changes as our lives change.

Some of us like the rush of 24-hour/ 7 day-a-week periods. Some like to work at a steady pace, others, in bursts.  Whatever it is for you, finding and mixing it with the expectations and consistency needed by a family—or any other interests—is an adjustment process of listening to yourself and to your loved ones. In this way we might yet find a healthful schedule at life speed, not light speed.

Whether we pray in quiet solitude or on the run, prayer teaches us to listen better for the divine and human voices in our lives.

We need to learn to pause every now and then—otherwise nothing good will catch up with us. If we will stop even long enough to ask: “Are you running with me, Jesus?” we will hear—however faintly—the “Yes” that comes from our divine companion. “Yes, I am running with you in all the fast lanes of life.”

And by the grace of God, as we run we will rediscover the ancient wisdom that those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wing like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.