Friday, April 30

The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.
—Isaiah 50:4

There are weary ones all around us. Some are lonely from the loss of the love that makes the heart fulsome and free. Some are hurting from pain in their bones that extracts all their joy ounce by ounce. 

Some are so poor that death seems a welcome alternative to life. Some are overworked, overwrought, overstressed by a riptide of demands that pull them under. Some are lost from shuffling through life without a sliver of meaning or purpose. Some are just weary of another busy day, arguments with their spouse, or the long passing winter.

It is not so difficult to help the weary, because we have been weary ourselves. We know the feelings that can sap our strength. We also know that God has sent others to us who somehow knew how to sustain us with barely more than a word. 

They came at our lowest point and said something that encouraged us and gave us hope. They touched our hand and told us they loved us. They offered to help ease our burden, and when we objected to putting them to work, they said, “Oh, it's nothing at all.”

They sat with us, sang with us, smiled at us, laughed with us, and we were sustained in our weariness. God always puts it into our souls to have a word for the weary. We have had our weariness lifted by some such soul. Can we be that one for someone else?

Gracious God, open my eyes to see those who need a word, and unloose my tongue to give it to them.

These Signposts originally appeared on explorefaith in 2008.