11.October.2026
An All-Inclusive Departure From “Normal”
Yesterday we looked at the two things Jesus sent us to do. Today is about what keeps us able to do them, because the commission is bigger than simply getting through the week. It starts with a hymn many of us grew up singing.
“He Lives,” written by Alfred H. Ackley in 1933, has some of the truest lines in any hymnal. He lives within my heart, and He walks and talks with me. That is not new, because the Old Testament already knew it.
And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
Genesis 5:24
And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.
Exodus 33:11
Enoch walked with God. Moses spoke with Him like a friend. The people who waited on the LORD in the Old Testament were not sitting around hoping, they were close to Him. In the New Covenant it becomes ordinary, because He no longer only walks beside us because He lives in us.
Where the song stops short is the line about a heart that grows weary and will not despair. Weariness itself is no sin, because Scripture says Jesus Himself was wearied.
Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. John 4:6
The question is where we take it. The song carries the weary heart as far as endurance, and endurance is good, but it is where many of us settled, as if holding on were the destination. That is how a tradition can carry a truth and still leave a gap, and it is why the Bereans are called noble. They did not reject Paul. They tested Paul’s message against the Word.
These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Acts 17:11
Testing it is not disloyalty. A hymn can be loved and true and still stop one step short of what Scripture says, and the Word is the place where we can see exactly where the sentence finishes.
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. Isaiah 40:31
Look at what happens to the weary here. They are not told to endure harder. They are told to wait on the LORD, and waiting here is not passive. It is the intimacy Enoch and Moses had, being close enough to be renewed. The order matters too, mounting up, then running, then walking, and the last one, walking and not fainting, is the everyday road. Renewal is not only for the high moments. It is for the ordinary Tuesday, and it sends us back out to run and to walk.
I challenge all of us to ask ourselves this question. Where have I settled for enduring when He has offered to renew me?
If you would like to hear the hymn, here it is, with credit to its writer.
https://youtu.be/RGcssqZK7pk?is=GLGQvB41dsmmo_-p
Make today count and see you tomorrow.
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