When you've got nothing left to push with

We tend to think strength is something you summon — grit your teeth, dig deeper, push through. So when we run out of it, our instinct is to push harder still, which is a bit like flooring the gas on an empty tank. Isaiah 40:31 offers a strangely different source: "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength."

Wait. Not strive, not hustle, not muscle through. Wait. In the Bible, waiting on the Lord isn't passive idleness; it's an active leaning — hoping in him, depending on him, looking to him instead of to your own dwindling reserves. The promise is that this kind of waiting is where renewed strength actually comes from: not from squeezing more out of yourself, but from receiving strength from outside yourself.

Running out isn't a failure — it's the human limit

The verses just before this make the point sharper. Isaiah says that even the young and strong give out: "Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall." In other words — yes, you've run out, and that's not a personal failing. It's the limit built into being human. Natural strength always runs dry eventually. The strength God gives to those who wait on him is a different kind, drawn from a well that doesn't.

Notice the order: soaring, running, then walking

Look at the sequence of images: "they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." It seems backwards — shouldn't soaring be the grand finale, not the opening? But it may descend on purpose. Soaring like an eagle is the dramatic, mountaintop moment. Running is the rarer burst of energy. And walking — and not fainting — is quietly the hardest of the three, because walking is ordinary. It's the daily, unglamorous slog, the putting-one-foot-in-front-of-the-other on the days nothing feels inspiring. The verse promises God's strength for that, too. Most of life isn't soaring; it's walking. And he meets you there.

So if you're depleted, the answer this verse offers isn't "find more willpower." It's "wait on the Lord" — turn your tired attention back to him, lean on him for the strength you don't have, and let him renew it. That might look like a slower morning, an honest prayer, a deliberate handing-over of what you've been white-knuckling. The renewing is his work, not yours. Your part is simply to wait — to stop pretending the tank isn't empty, and to look to the One who fills it.