Comfort & Strength in the Waiting: Part 2 (Isaiah 40:3-5)

           I am currently preparing for my upcoming surgery, which involves a lot of phone calls, e-mails, scheduling, re-scheduling, arranging, and organizing. I’ve put together my 4th home file for working with my clinic, complete with dividers inside and a schedule attached to the front. I’ve secured a place to stay in the town where I’ll be having surgery and requested the appropriate amount of time off of work. I’ve read through my pre-op packet so that I know which medications and supplements to stop and when. I’ve reviewed the notes from the communication logs from my past surgeries to figure out the quickest, most efficient way to get financial estimates with the fewest phone calls.

[Free tip: keep a call log involving communication about anything medical – write down the date, the name of the person you talked to, the department that person was from, the direct phone number for that person (if possible), and the gist of the conversation.  If they don’t offer this information automatically, or if you forget it as you are talking to them, ask them for it at the end of the conversation.  It is so helpful to have later, trust me!]

            Something like surgery obviously requires some amount of preparation.  What may be less obvious is that accessing the comfort and strength God promises also requires some prep work.  We want the comfort, and we want the strength, but if our hearts have been neglected and cluttered up with sin, untended wounds, and distrust, we will have an impossibly hard time receiving those things.  It would be like trying to apply a registration sticker to a dirty license plate – the sticker will likely just fall off, if you can even get it to stick in the first place. 

            Isaiah 40:3-5 is used in all four gospels (the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) in reference to John the Baptist.  John’s job was to prepare the way for Jesus.  His message was one of repentance and of dealing with sin.  When we repent, we change our mind to fully agree with what God says about sin.  This change of mind naturally directs us to change our behaviors (Romans 12:2 tells us that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds). With this message, John helped prepare the hearts of the people – to smooth out the rough edges and clear out the debris – so that they were ready to receive and believe in Jesus when He came.

            John’s message didn’t leave his listeners despondent or defensive like we might assume (though I’m sure he probably had a few who responded that way).  Luke 3:15 records that the people who heard John speak were left in a state of waiting expectantly.  Some even wondered if John himself was the Messiah, though He quickly corrected them and pointed them to the One who would come after him.  The point of dealing with sin through repentance isn’t to leave us trapped in shame, crushed under the weight of our guilt, or restricted to a robotic and boring cookie cutter life.  On the contrary, dealing with sin is the path toward restoration, healing, freedom, and hope. 

We must be diligent to keep our hearts clear of all that doesn’t fit with the way God designed us to live.  As we do that, we ensure that our hearts are prepared to see God’s glory when it is revealed, to accept the love and comfort He offers, and to rely on His strength in an act of trust.  If we are not careful to tend to our hearts, particularly during seasons of waiting, we will find ourselves much more often and much more quickly falling into despondence, desperation, and weariness. We rob ourselves of the richness of God’s fellowship and presence when we focus so much on preparing outwardly for whatever it is we are waiting for that we fail to do the work inwardly. 

It’s an easy mistake to make.  Particularly with waiting for a pregnancy, I have neglected my heart several times in my determination to do “all the things” to try and make the physical outcome happen.  You’ve read it before in my posts, so I don’t need to repeat all the things I’ve been doing to try to get pregnant.  Most of it is outward and physical, and it is easy to get so busy and wrapped up in it all that I don’t realize how messy my heart has become.  Just like the laundry that is never done, our hearts need constant maintenance.  They don’t automatically stay clean once we know Jesus. One day, we will be free from the very presence of sin, but for today, it still lives and wars inside us.  It often sneaks in undetected while we are distracted, like mold does.  Coasting is not an option – we have to be diligent and intentional in keeping our hearts clean and prepared. 

Thankfully, those of us who trust in Jesus have the Holy Spirit – another subject John spoke of frequently with great anticipation in conjunction with his message of repentance.  The Holy Spirit helps us to understand God’s Word so that we can know how we are to live.  He also guides and leads us as we remain sensitive to Him and walk with Him throughout every step of our day.  However, we can also stifle Him and drown out His voice by refusing to act on His prompts and by harboring sin in our hearts and refusing to give it up.  He helps us prepare our hearts to receive the blessings God has to offer, but we still have to do our part or we will silence His voice in our lives until we finally decide to cooperate in dealing with the mess.

            When we are hurting and waiting, we want instant comfort and strength without much effort.  God gives it to us every day in various ways, but if our hearts aren’t prepared to receive it, we will miss it.  We cannot afford to wait passively and “let ourselves go” spiritually.  Nearness to our God is so important in times of waiting, and we have to do the work to make sure our hearts are always ready to hear from Him, to believe Him, and to accept whatever He deems good.  If we refuse to take care of our hearts, we are really choosing to rely on our own drained strength.  God has provided a better way.  We just have to take it.  

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Comfort & Strength in the Waiting: Part 1 (Isaiah 40:1, 2)

            Of all the different types of tests I’ve endured, my least favorite was my hormone panel.  When I first found out that I was going to have to get blood drawn every other day (and also a couple days in a row) for about a month, my stomach dropped to my toes.  My small veins had already proven to be uncooperative several times through thyroid blood tests.  Most of my previous phlebotomists had to stick me at least twice and do a lot of digging to get the job done.  Some had to go get a co-worker with more experience.  I dreaded the whole process ahead of me, but I found comfort by looking forward to the other side. 

            The first 39 chapters of the book of Isaiah are largely characterized by prophesies of judgment and condemnation.  Israel and Judah received far worse news than a mere month of poking and prodding.  They had turned their back on God.  They had broken their covenant with God by their disobedience and idolatry, and they continually refused to turn back to Him (not for lack of opportunity).  Isaiah prophesied of the warfare and captivity that were to come as a result if they did not choose to repent.  Though the times were already trying, they were going to get much darker and far more difficult. 

            God is just and holy, true to His word, and firm in His discipline.  He is also the “Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Cor. 1:3).  He warned His people of the fiery trials that were to come and almost in the same breath offered them undeserved comfort.  The final 27 chapters of Isaiah, beginning with chapter 40, are filled with the promise, comfort, and hope of future deliverance and restoration.  Judah still had over 100 years of difficulty and 70 years of Babylonian captivity ahead of her before she would see that deliverance and restoration (Martin, 1091), but God gave her what she needed to find strength and comfort in the midst of the suffering as she waited for Him to come through on His promises.  As you probably already know from the prologue, I want to focus primarily on chapter 40 in this series. 

            In the first two verses of Isaiah 40, I see three reminders that help bring comfort and strength while waiting on God.  First, these verses remind us of the compassionate heart of our God.  Verse one doesn’t use the word “comfort” just once, but twice.  This repetition emphasizes that God does not delight in the suffering and distress of His people.  He desires to comfort them even in the times when their suffering is a direct result of their sin and disobedience (I want to clarify here that not all hardship is a direct result of sin – see John9:1-3 for one example.  However, the fact that God wants to comfort His people even when they are sitting in a mess of their own making is a testament to the depths and the great expanse of His mercy and compassion).  In verse two, God tells Isaiah to “speak kindly to Jerusalem.”  God wanted Isaiah to speak to the hearts of His people with all the gentle tenderness of a mother toward her child.  While we all will experience seasons of hardship, we can take comfort in knowing that God cares about our pain and that He will be gentle with us even on the days when we mess up.  Even though He doesn’t always take the painful circumstance away when we think He should, He feels for us, and He will never abandon us.  Jesus wept when Lazarus died even though He knew that He would bring him back to life; He weeps with us too.   

            The second reminder that I see in this passage is that suffering is only for a time.  Verse two continues on: “And call out to her [Jerusalem], that her warfare has ended.”  My hormone panel that stirred up so much fear and dread inside was two years ago now.  I have no desire to repeat the experience, but it truly was “over before I knew it.”  It rarely even crosses my mind anymore; when it does, I now see it as evidence that in Christ I have access to the strength and resolve I need to get through whatever God places in my path.  I need this reminder for the days that my wait seems endless – when the days have stretched into months and years of aching and longing.  It may not be 40 years of wandering in the wilderness or 70 years of Babylonian captivity, but I still sometimes lose sight of the fact that someday I will be on the other side (though I do not know exactly what the other side will look like).  There will be healing, and there will be an end to this season.  I had to drive to another town this morning to run some errands, and another country song came on the radio that fit perfectly with this point.  The chorus of Gary Allan’s “Every Storm” says:

                       

“Every storm runs, runs out of rain

Just like every dark night turns into day

Every heartache will fade away

Just like every storm runs, runs out of rain.”

            Verse two closes out with our third reminder: our sin debt has been paid.  No matter how devastating our circumstances are, we can rest in the fact that our biggest and most dangerous problem has been solved if we have trusted in Jesus for salvation.  This particular verse refers to the fact that Israel’s time of warfare and captivity would satisfy the terms of Israel’s covenant with God so that they could start fresh as a nation.  Their discipline would be complete.  We have even more reason to find comfort since we are on the other side of the cross.  When we trust in Jesus and His death and resurrection, all of our sins (past, present, and future) are put onto His account, and He transfers His righteousness to our account.  It’s a done deal.  God already came through for us in the matter of our greatest need.  He already demonstrated his perfect, unconditional love by sending His Son to die for us even while we still stood opposed to Him.  He already showed us His goodness, His power, His wisdom, and His grace, and He is worthy of our trust and complete devotion.  How comforting it is to know that the Son of God who conquered death itself and saved me from eternal separation from God is the same One who holds my days in His hands.

            God is for you.  He sees you.  He cares deeply about your heartaches, your anxieties, and your fears, and He offers you what no one else can.  He offers Himself:

• the compassionate Father who longs to wrap you up in the security and peace of His strong arms.
• the all-knowing and wise God who sees the end from the beginning as clearly as if it has already happened.
• the suffering Savior who knows our weaknesses and our pain and who gave His own life to save ours.

He longs to give you His comfort and His strength in overwhelming abundance, and we’ve just barely scratched the surface.

Martin, John A.  "Isaiah," The Bible Knowledge Commentary (Old Testament), ed., John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck.  Colorado Springs, CO: Cook Communications Ministries, 2004.

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Comfort & Strength in the Waiting: Prologue

        Two words have repeatedly cropped up in my mind over the past several months.  They started as brief whispers – faint apparitions of warning that faded into the background nearly as quickly as they had appeared.  With each passing week, they’ve grown louder, more insistent, more firm, and more tenacious.  Each morning temperature read, each appointment scheduled, each ovulation and pregnancy test taken, each pill swallowed, each castor oil pack applied, each hovering decision remaining unmade, each inflammatory food rejected, each medication injected, and each treatment attempted has accumulated into a massive boulder sitting on my chest with the two words etched into its side.  The weight of it has grown so heavy – it’s growth so gradual that it went largely unnoticed (at least by me) until recently – that it has been suffocating me. 

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Striving.  Weary. 

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I can’t count the number of times Tenth Avenue North’s songs “By Your Side” and “Worn” have started playing in my head lately:

* * *

“Why are you striving these days?

Why are you trying to earn grace?

Why are you crying?

Let me life up your face; just don’t turn away”

* * *

“I’m tired, I’m worn

My heart is heavy

From the work it takes

To keep on breathing”

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        Mentally and emotionally, I have been caught in the cycle of going two steps forward and three steps back.  Another song lyric caught my attention during one of my work commutes the other day.  Confession time: I like listening to country music when I drive.  Most other genres either add to my tension and anxiety (driving stresses me out) or lull me into a dazed sleepiness (also not good while driving). Anyway, the lyric was this: “In a race you can’t win, just slow it down.”  While Thomas Rhett’s “Be a Light” has nothing to do with infertility, this lyric stuck with me for a couple reasons.  First, “slow it down” appeals to the part of me that is weary down to my bones of trying to keep track and keep up with all that I’ve been trying to do in the infertility arena in addition to juggling all of life’s regular demands, additional struggles, and worldwide stressors.  Second, some days it sure feels like infertility is a race that I can’t win. 

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        However, I’ve been examining how I view the end of this race; is it one that I’ve really won once I finally have a baby of my own in my arms?  Or does it go deeper than that? And is pushing so hard to get there faster wasting away the life and joy inside of me so much that there won’t be anything left by the time I’ve “arrived?”  A few hours before writing this, I listened to a podcast episode of Joy + Infertility with Cathie Quillet, M.A., LMFT (I highly recommend it for anyone who has experienced infertility or pregnancy loss as part of their story).  Among many other things, Cathie explained how brain scans have shown that “the crisis of an infertility diagnosis has the same weight as a cancer diagnosis.”  Infertility is a trauma.  As such, it has to be dealt with head-on now (not avoided), or it will inevitably lead to problems down the road, regardless of whether or not parenthood is achieved.  One example she gave was that research has shown that women who have gone through infertility are at higher risk for postpartum depression and anxiety.  Infertility can also break a marriage.  The trauma of infertility cannot be fixed by a pregnancy or a baby.  She expanded on this idea with a challenge that really struck a chord with me: “If you’re still not pregnant in six months, how can we [still] live really well?  Because that is a lot of pressure to put on a pregnancy to make you happy if you’ve been living with a brain that looks like PTSD for how long.  That is an unreliable source of joy and happiness for you.”

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        I went in for a fertility (abdominal) massage this week with the masseuse that was recommended by a friend.  I have been to her a few times before, and she is phenomenal both in her work and in her demeanor and encouragement.  She prays over me and with me and is one of the most compassionate people I know.  I explained to her that I’ve had pain return and gradually worsen over the past several months and that my doctor has recommended another surgery because she suspects that my endometriosis is back.  She let me know that fertility massage is contraindicated in cases of endometriosis, so instead I just got a regular massage.  Afterward, we visited about how I’m doing emotionally, and she said she really feels like we need to take a break – that Jon and I need to get away together and rediscover the joy of life again.  Ironically, we were planning on taking a long overdue vacation this fall, but it will need to be postponed because of surgery.

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        A friend from my freshman year of Bible college unexpectedly reached out to me saying that God had been impressing me on her heart that day, and she asked how I was doing.  She reached out on the very day when both my period started and my parents had to put down the miniature schnauzer that we got when I was sixteen.  My luteal phase had been longer than normal, and I had been experiencing several pregnancy symptoms.  I knew they were most likely happening because my doctor had switched me to HCG shots (HCG is the hormone that causes pregnancy symptoms and that causes an at-home pregnancy test to turn positive), but I had still gotten my hopes up more than normal.  Baxter was effectively my emotional support dog through all my tumultuous dating years and my entrance into adulthood.  He continued to be a comfort to me whenever I visited my parents through all the early marriage struggles, the multiple occurrences of uprooting and moving in the midst of unpleasant circumstances, and the five and half years so far of trying to conceive.  I felt so beat up that day, and my friend’s message was a tangible reminder that even after all this time, God still hasn’t forgotten me.               

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        You see, though all these voices (and more) from unexpected sources have spoken to my heart in different and meaningful ways to reflect my own heart back to me and to help me see how this striving and weariness are taking their toll, I know there is ultimately one Voice behind it all.  With the words “striving” and “weary” appearing in my mind on a nearly constant loop, I finally grabbed my phone, opened up the Bible app, and typed “weary” into the search bar.  Of course, the first verse that popped up was Matthew 11:28: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”  While I love that verse, I knew I needed to keep looking.  After reading a few more verses on the list, Isaiah 40:29-30 drew me in: “He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power.  Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly….”  I had to open the whole chapter to read more.  Then, I had to go back and start from the beginning of the chapter.  Before I knew it, I was reaching for commentaries, opening up the exegetical and passage guides in my Logos Bible Software program, and grabbing a notepad to jot down an outline of the main ideas from the chapter.  I am still wrestling through the passage and deciding if and how to break up the content, but keep an eye out for future posts if you want to journey with me as I dig deeper into how to find comfort and strength as I wait on the Lord.    

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