Rev. Pete Grassow

Brookings First United Methodist Church

“God’s understanding is beyond human reach, giving power to the tired and reviving the exhausted.” (Isa. 40:29)

I admire the way the people of South Dakota do not give up!

You dig in — and keep going. Farming is hard, but you put your heads down and keep growing stuff. It can be a blizzard outside on a highway (and the people of Texas and Arizona have packed up and gone home) and South Dakota keeps trucking. But even with this reputation for hanging-in during the most difficult moments of life, a person’s spirit can crack, and we all know times when the despair of life haunts us.

I offer the words of Isaiah: “Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, giving power to the tired and reviving the exhausted.”

The ever-strong and never-weary One loves to help weak and weary people. Because not everyone can “tough it out.” But, in the same way that we can draw strength from God — let us give strength to others who reach the end of their capacity to cope.

Let us never disparage or look down on someone who is struggling in life. We who follow the way of Jesus to lift up the weak and comfort the broken hearted.

This is true not only for our family and friends, but also for the people we do not like, and (says Jesus) for our enemies — or more to the point: to those who cross our borders and seek asylum.