BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Worship last Sunday included a moving reflection from Susan McKay on the passage she had just read, which included the verse: “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40.31)

Susan talked of the way these promises had sustained her at times when she wondered where she would get the strength to keep going. But, as she put it: “The promises he makes cannot go unfufilled … because he is GOD. So when it says – they will soar like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint – what seems to be impossible actually becomes possible.

“I love the order in which the promises come. ‘They will soar; they will run; they will walk’. I can’t help seeing this a little like a poem. You might expect the ‘walking’ to come first, and then the ‘running’, and then a build to the ‘soaring’ finale.

“But, no, it’s the opposite. There may be occasions when we ‘soar’ and feel strong and able to take on the day. There may be days when we can ‘run’ and manage well with his help But the promise ends with the walking – the simplest of the verbs: ‘they will walk and not grow faint’.

“And yet this is not an anticlimax. Because most of my days simply entail ‘walking’ … with God’s help … and when we trust in Him … we will not faint.

“That tender, attentive care from an all-powerful, loving God is available to us. In the joys and in the sorrows …  through Jesus who offers us the sure and certain hope of heaven.”

Now that’s a message for these coronavirus-focused day! You can read the whole service, and listen to it again for the rest of the month, at this link.