At the end of the year, I will be retiring from the insurance claims job I have been working at for over 30 years.  Our company has offered some of us old-timers the opportunity to take advantage of an early retirement.  It’s early in the sense that I am old enough to draw my pension but I’m too young to stop working.  But that’s okay, I like to work.  So, I have taken advantage of their offer and I have been applying for full-time chaplain jobs.  Apparently, I have not yet applied for the job the Lord wants me to have because I am still looking.  The whole job seeking process has served to remind me to trust in the Lord and wait on His timing.  If you know me very well, then you know that waiting is not what I do best.  But currently, that is what I am doing.  As I have been waiting, I have been focusing on one of my wife’s favorite Bible verses, Isaiah 40:31.

Isaiah 40:31 Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.

I love that Bible verse.  I love the promise that if we wait on the Lord, He will renew us and strengthen us.  Some translations say “those who trust in the Lord.”  And yet other translations say “those who hope” in the Lord.  Each translation is accurate as the word Isaiah uses is one that speaks of trusting, waiting and looking forward with hope and assurance to what the Lord God is going to do.  It is true.  We can know and trust that if we look to Him, He will give us strength, He will give us the power to endure.

This has been a different and difficult year in many ways for many people. I pray that each of you will look to the Lord and allow Him to comfort you and strengthen you.  I pray that you will continue to place your hope and your trust in Him.