• Read Isaiah 40

🌅MORNING— Speak Kindly to Her

• Focal Passage: Isaiah 40:1-2

“Comfort, O comfort My people,” says your God. “Speak kindly to Jerusalem; and call out to her, that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity has been removed, that she has received of the LORD’S hand double for all her sins.”

Joseph Parker once said, “Preach to the suffering and you will never lack a congregation. There is a broken heart in every pew.” That is not preacher’s exaggeration. It is pastoral reality. There is always someone in the room who is barely holding it together.

Isaiah 40 begins there.

We step from chapter 39 into chapter 40 and the tone changes completely. The prophet who thundered judgment now speaks like a shepherd kneeling beside the wounded. Exile is coming. Loss is coming. Hard years are ahead. And yet the first word is not accusation.

“Comfort, O comfort My people.”

Notice that phrase — My people. Even under discipline, they still belong to Him. Their warfare will end. Their sin will be removed. God is not done with them.

There was a season in my own life in Cincinnati when I felt misplaced and sidelined. I was not preaching. I was not teaching. I was stuck in work that felt far removed from calling. It was easy in that stretch to wonder if my way was hidden from the Lord — if I had somehow drifted beyond His notice.

Israel’s exile was not innocent. It followed generations of rebellion and defiance. Yet even there, after discipline had done its work, God speaks comfort. That is the soil Isaiah 40 grows in — not denial of sin, but mercy after truth.

“Speak to her heart.”

That is what God tells Isaiah to do. Not lecture. Not scold. Speak to the heart.

C.S. Lewis once wrote:

“The Christian religion… does not begin in comfort; it begins in dismay… In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth—only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.”

Isaiah has already dealt in truth. He has named the sin. He has warned of exile. Now he can speak comfort that is solid — not soft soap, but something that holds.

Isaiah’s comfort is not abstract. The very next verses speak of a voice crying in the wilderness, “Clear the way for the LORD” (40:3). All four Gospels identify that voice as John the Baptist (cf. Mark 1:1–4). The comfort of Isaiah 40 moves forward into history. God does not merely soothe His people; He comes to them. The Shepherd promised in verse 11 walks into the wilderness and then to a cross.

And how can comfort be this deep? Because forgiveness is real. “Her iniquity has been removed.” Isaiah hints here at atonement — a removal that chapter 53 will later unfold fully. The comfort of Isaiah 40 rests on the coming work of Christ.

If you are in a season that feels stalled, sidelined, or heavy, hear this chapter as it was first spoken:

Comfort.
You are still His.

• Reflection:  Where do you most need to hear that you still belong to Him, even in this season?

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🌆EVENING— Wings As Eagles

• Focal Passage: Isaiah 40:30-31

“Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, 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.”

Isaiah now turns to people who feel forgotten.

“My way is hidden from the Lord,” they say (v. 27). Exile has twisted their view of God. Some question His care. Others question His power. Perhaps He wants to help but cannot overcome stronger forces. That explanation still circulates today. But Isaiah will not allow it.

He asks question after question — fourteen in this chapter — not to shame them, but to stretch their view of God. Who measured the waters in the hollow of His hand? Who directed the Spirit of the Lord? Who calls the stars by name? The nations are a drop from a bucket. Rulers rise and fall at His breath. The idols people construct cannot even stand upright without being propped in place.

This is not a small God trying His best. This is the Everlasting Creator.

Steven Lawson tells the story of Donald Barnhouse preaching before the brilliant Old Testament scholar Robert Dick Wilson. Midway through the sermon, Wilson stood and left. Barnhouse was crushed. Afterward he went to the professor’s office and asked where he had failed. Wilson replied, “Oh, you didn’t fail. I always come to hear my former students preach once. I want to know if they are a big-Godder or a small-Godder. You preach a big God. I didn’t need to hear any more.”

Isaiah 40 is big-God theology for tired saints.

And then comes the promise: “Those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength.” Waiting here does not mean idle resignation. It means hopeful dependence — lifting your eyes, rehearsing His character, trusting His word when the horizon is unclear.

If you are exhausted tonight — not theatrically tired, but bone-tired — notice what the text does not say. It does not say, “Try harder.” It does not say, “Be stronger.” It says, “He gives strength to the weary.” The initiative is His.

An airport once struggled with complaints about long waits at baggage claim. Executives reduced the average wait to eight minutes, yet complaints continued. They eventually realized passengers walked only one minute to reach the carousel and then stood idle for seven. So they moved the arrival gates farther away. The walk was longer, but the waiting felt shorter because it was occupied.

Waiting feels hardest when it seems empty. But waiting on the Lord is never empty. Even when you cannot see movement, He is at work — steadying, sustaining, shaping endurance into your soul.

The promise unfolds in stages. You may soar like an eagle in rare moments. More often, you will run for a season. And most days, you will simply walk. The miracle is not always flight. Sometimes it is that you keep walking.

The Everlasting God does not grow tired. And He is not impatient with your weakness. He gathers lambs in His arm. He carries them close. If tonight you can only take one more step, take it leaning on Him.

• Reflection:  Where do you most need His strength tonight—in soaring, in running, or simply in walking one more step?
• Closing Prayer:  Everlasting God, speak comfort to our hearts this night.  When we feel forgotten let us feel in our spirit Your everlasting arms.  When we grow weary strengthen us.  Amen.