NIV.Is.40.26 Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one
and calls forth each of them by name…28 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.
29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
by Ruth Wilkinson
A few years ago, there was a summer when our son was struggling with depression. This was the first time we’d encountered it and we thought it was something he’d go through and come out the other side. As parents do, we encouraged him to push back against it, to get out there and do stuff, including a summer job.
The only work available was picking strawberries for a local farmer and we thought that would be perfect–fresh air, sunshine, the smell of berry fields, no time pressure–not to mention it being the perfect, introvert-friendly summer job.
He absolutely hated it. He tried; he showed up to his shifts and worked away. But he absolutely hated it. He kept going for most of the season, but after several weeks, he quit.
We didn’t understand why it went so badly, but eventually we wondered whether it had to do with the posture of berry picking.
Head down, looking at the ground, shoulders hunched forward. We wonder now whether that downward posture combined with his depression to make everything worse.
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I’ve been thinking lately about looking down. And looking up.
The 40th chapter of Isaiah contains a message to the people of Israel: a message sent to encourage them, to let them know that their season of exile was nearly over. They’d been invaded, defeated, and taken captive, and carried away.
Their situation was different from ours in a few ways:
- They’d been told by God in no uncertain terms that their situation was a direct result of choices they’d made. It was effectively time out for bad behaviour. We have no credible reason to believe that is the case for us.
- What they were afraid of was men with swords, violent invaders who, if kept happy, might not assault or kill. We are afraid of each other–of friends, family, neighbours, or any close contact.
- They were scooped up and taken from their home, their beautiful city, en masse to somewhere far away, where they didn’t want to be. We have been separated from each other, distanced for our own protection.
But even with those differences…
- we are wondering why this is happening.
- we are afraid, anxious.
- we are not where we want to be.
Isaiah 40 is one part of the Bible that we take to heart–words of comfort and encouragement, even though they were spoken long ago in a time that is not now, to people who are not us.
But they endure, they’ve been preserved, they’ve been painted on wall hangings and t-shirts, because, an age and a world away, they still apply to us. They contain truth beyond their particular circumstances, and show us something about who God is and what he intends for us. Something he wants us to know.
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“Look up,” He says.*
“Look up and see how the eagle flies.
Look up and count the stars.”
Yes, there’ve been days when I’ve run and run and run, thinking I’d never run out of breath.
Days when I walked for mile after mile after mile, strength after strength after strength.
Days when I looked up and I soared.
But these are days when I can only look down at the road.
As far as the next step.
Days when the weariness catches up to me and I stumble.
And I fall.
And I cry aloud, “God doesn’t see me! The Lord isn’t listening to me!”
And I wallow in my own echo.
He doesn’t. He isn’t. He doesn’t. He isn’t. He doesn’t. He isn’t.
But when the echoes fade, I hear him.
“Look up,” He says.
I am the everlasting God.
The Creator of the whole of earth and heaven.
I never get weary.
I never stumble.
I never fall.
I have strength to give to the weary, the powerless.
You may fall.
But trust in me.
Wait on me and I will renew your strength.
To walk again.
To run again.
To soar.”
He says, “Look up.”
So I will look up.
I will look up and see.
I will look up and walk.
I will look up and run.
I will look up and soar.
*Ruth’s paraphrase of Isaiah 40, selected verses
Christianity 201 
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