'He fainteth not, neither is weary.' 'He giveth power to the faint.'
'Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall
utterly fail,' but waiting on God the curse removes, and faintness and
weariness cease, and the humble man becomes in some measure participant
of, and conformed to, that life which knows no exhausting, operates
unspent, burns with an undying flame, works and never wearies. We may
take to ourselves all the peace and strength that come from that
transcendent hope, whilst we are still subject, as of course we must
be, to the limitations imposed on spirits fettered, as well as housed,
in body. Whilst toil leaves as its consequence fatigue, and as our days
increase our strength wanes; whilst physical weariness remains
unaffected, there may pour into our spirits the influx of divine power,
by which they will remain fresh and strong through advancing years and
heavy tasks and stiff battles. Is it not something to believe it
possible that
'In old age, when others fade,
_We_ fruit still forth shall bring'
Is it not something to know it as a possibility that we may have that
within us which has no tendency to decay, which neither perishes with
the using nor is exhausted by exercise, which grows the more the longer
we live, which has in it the pledge of immortality, because it has in
it the impossibility of exhaustion? Thus to all of us who know how
weary life sometimes is, thus to those of us who in the flush of our
youth are deceived into thinking that the vigorous limbs will always be
vigorous, and the clear eyesight will always be keen, and to those of
us who, in the long weary levels of middle life, where there are few
changes, are worn out by the eventless recurrence, day after day, of
duties that have become burdensome, because they are so small, and to
those of us who are learning by experience how inevitably early
strength utterly fails; to us all surely it comes us a gospel, 'They
that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall run and
not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.' It is true; and each of
us may set to our seals, if we will, that the promise is faithful and
sure.
Is that not a higher exercise of power than to 'preserve the stars from
wrong'? Is not the strength that restores mightier than the strength
that sustains? Is not the hand that, put beneath the falling body,
stops its plunge, and lifts it whence it fell, displaying a greater
manifestation of strength, than the hand that held it unfailing at the
height? The mighty miracle of the calm, steadfast heavens, with no
vacant spaces where yesterday a star blazed, is less than the miracle
of that restoring energy which, coming to men separated from the
Fountain of power, re-establishes the connection between them, and out
of the fainting creature makes one that is neither faint nor weary for
ever. God is greater, in the miracle that He works upon you and me,
poor strengthless souls, than when He rolls the stars along. Redemption
is more than Creation, and to the hosts of 'the principalities and
powers in heavenly places, is made known,' by the Church, 'of restored
and redeemed souls, the manifold wisdom of God.'
What are the consequences that the prophet traces to this restoring
power? 'They shall mount up with wings as eagles.' Power to soar, to
lift our heavy selves from earth, and to reach the heavenly places
where we shall commune with God, that is the greatest of all gifts to
strengthened spirits. And it is the foundation of all the others, for
it is only they who know how to soar that can creep, and it is only
they who have renewed their strength hour by hour, by communion with
the Source of all energy and might, who when they 'drop with quivering
wings, composed and still,' down to the low earth, there live unwearied
and unfainting.
'They shall run and not be weary.' Crises come--moments when
circumstances demand from us more than ordinary energy and swifter rate
of progress. We have often, in the course of our years, to make short
spurts of unusual effort. 'They shall run and not be weary. They shall
walk.' The bulk of our lives is a slow jog-trot, and it is harder to
keep elasticity, buoyancy, freshness of spirit, in the eventless
mill-horse round of our trivial lives than it is in the rarer bursts.
Excitement helps us in the one; nothing but dogged principle, and close
communion with God, 'mounting on wings as eagles,' will help us in the
other. But we may have Him with us in all the arid and featureless
levels across which we have to plod, as well as in the height to which
we sometimes have to struggle upwards, or in the depths into which we
have sometimes to plunge. If we have the life of Christ within us, then
neither the one nor the other will exhaust our energy or darken our
spirits.