Daily Devotionals

Music For the Soul

Devotional: July 26th

POWER FOR THE FAINT

He, giveth power to the faint. . . . Even the youths shall faint and be weary . . . 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 40:29-31.

Earth knows no independent strength. All earthly power is limited in range and duration, and by the very law of its being is steadily tending to weakness.

But though that has a sad side, it has also a grand and blessed one. Man’s needs are the open mouth - if I may say so - into which God puts His gifts. The more sad and pathetic the condition of feeble humanity by contrast with the strength, the immortal strength of God, the more wondrous that grace and power of His, which is not contented with hanging there in the Heavens above us, but bends right down to bless us and to turn us into its own likeness. The low earth stretches, grey and sorrowful, flat and dreary, beneath the blue, arched heaven, but the heaven stoops to encompass, ay! to touch it. " He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength."

All creatural life digs its own grave. " The youths shall faint with the weakness of physical decay, the weakness of burdened hearts, the weakness of consciously distracted natures, the weakness of agonizing conscience. They shall be weary with the weariness of dreary monotony, of uncongenial tasks, of long continued toil, of hope deferred, of disappointed wishes, of bitter disenchantment’s, of the learning the lesson that all is vanity, the weariness that creeps over us all as life goes on." All these are the occasions for the inward strength of God to manifest itself even in us; according to the great word that He spoke once and means ever: "My grace is sufficient for thee, and My strength is made perfect in weakness."

Isaiah did not know - or, if he did, he knew it very dimly - what every Christian child knows: that the highest revelation of the power of Him that " fainteth not, neither is weary," is found in Him who, "being weary with His journey, sat thus on the well," and, being worn out with the long work and excitement of a hard day, slept the sleep of the laboring man on the wooden pillow of the little boat amid the whistle of the tempest and the dash of the waves.

And Isaiah did not know - or, if he did, he knew it very dimly and as from afar - that the highest fulfillment of His own word - "He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength "- would be found when a gentle voice from amidst the woes of humanity said: "Come unto Me! all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest Take My yoke upon you; and ye shall find rest unto your souls."