When You Feel Abandoned (Isaiah 40)

Big Idea: God's plans for you are good, his greatness knows no bounds, and he invites you to connect your weakness to his limitless power, finding in him all that you need.

Have you ever felt utterly hopeless? Sometimes, we encounter crises that make us feel alone and overwhelmed by our challenges. It can feel as though life is falling apart, with no relief in sight.

What do you do when you lose someone you love and are overwhelmed with grief? When you're confronted with a sudden diagnosis or chronic illness? When a meaningful relationship comes to an end? When you lose your job and are overwhelmed by mounting financial pressure? Or when prolonged stress and exhaustion leave you feeling unable to cope with life’s demands?

Struggles are more common than we think and can make us feel out of control, lose our sense of identity, and feel hopeless. This, too, is a part of life—even for Christians. We all go through seasons when it feels like our world has collapsed and hope seems distant.

Today’s passage takes us into one of those times for God’s people.

Today we’ll discuss Isaiah 40. I wish we had more time to go through the entire book of Isaiah with you. Maybe one day soon. But the reason I’m taking us there today is that I sense some of us could use the message of this chapter. Some of us know what it’s like to feel crushed, to be, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1, “utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself” (2 Corinthians 1:8). Isaiah has a message for you.

Isaiah 40 marks a new section in the book. Isaiah 1 to 39 addresses the southern kingdom under the reign of four kings: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, from the 780s to 680s BC. It has a message: God will judge his people for their sins. For instance, read the words of Isaiah 39:6-7:

Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the LORD. And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.

Chapter 40 marks a major break in the book. Isaiah prophesies about future people who will face God's judgment during the exile from Jerusalem between 605 and 586 BC, when three waves of people were taken away and the city and temple were destroyed.

Think about how devastating this would have been. The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, seen as God's home, left people feeling abandoned and unsure of their identity as God's chosen ones. They faced deep grief, cultural loss, and practical challenges while rebuilding their lives in a new country. They would have felt an overwhelming sense of confusion, loss, homesickness, and spiritual crisis.

Psalm 137:1 describes how they felt:

By the waters of Babylon,
there we sat down and wept,
when we remembered Zion.

What can you do when it feels like you’ve lost everything and are utterly alone? This was precisely the reality faced by Isaiah’s audience in Isaiah 40. They were exiles in Babylon, a people broken and burdened. Yet what Isaiah wrote to them offers profound hope and guidance for us as well.

Three Truths for Times of Crisis

Isaiah 40 unveils three powerful truths that speak directly to our feelings of abandonment and the crises we endure. These truths are not shallow answers or easy fixes. Isaiah spoke to people whose lives were in turmoil; they needed more than just superficial comfort. Instead, these are profound, life-giving truths from the heart of God, spoken to his people in love.

In the face of your own hardship, we need to understand three things:

First, you need to understand God’s intent (40:1-11)

The opening verses of Isaiah 40 are likened to a symphony's overture, preparing the listener for a powerful message of hope. During their crisis, God reminds his people that he is still at work, cares deeply, and will fulfill his purpose of world redemption.

Consider the beautiful words of verses 1 and 2:

“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God.
“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the LORD’s hand
double for all her sins.”

If you’re going through a hard time and feel abandoned, reflect on this: even after everything, God still calls them his people. He speaks words of comfort, not condemnation. Yes, their exile was a consequence of their disobedience, but that disobedience was not the final word. As Ray Ortlund beautifully puts it: “There is always an end to God’s disciplining of us, but there is never an end to God’s comforts for us.”

Verses 3–11 amplify this comfort through three distinct voices:

• Verses 3-5: A worldwide display of God’s glory is coming. A messenger will prepare the way for a new King, and a highway will be built. When this King arrives, the whole earth will witness his glory.
• Verses 6-8: God’s promises are unfailing. Human promises often go unfulfilled—people are fleeting, unreliable. But God is not like us. As verse 8 proclaims, “The word of our God will stand forever.” Ortlund adds, “God means well, and he never fails… His kingdom is the only final inevitability in human history.”
• Verses 9-11: Lift your eyes. God calls his people to behold him: “Behold your God!” He is mighty, just, and majestic—but also tender, caring, and gentle, like a shepherd who lovingly gathers and carries his lambs.

In these verses, God speaks into the heart of his people’s crisis, not by dismissing their pain but by offering comfort, tenderness, and hope. He reminds them that their suffering isn’t the final chapter of their story.

Dear sufferer, hear this truth: your pain is not the end of your story either. God has not abandoned you. He promises restoration and presents himself as your gentle shepherd. His promises are dependable, and his character unfailing.

This is God’s intent: to bring comfort and restoration when the season of suffering has passed. But there’s more. Isaiah 40 also reveals a second profound truth that you need to understand:

We need to understand God’s greatness (40:12-26)

God’s intent is unshakable, but it’s only meaningful if he has the ability to carry it out. Verses 12 to 26 highlight God's immense greatness and power to fulfill his purpose for his people.

Verses 12-26 paint a breathtaking picture of God’s greatness. It begins by asking rhetorical questions to highlight God’s unmatched power and wisdom.

Look at what God reveals about himself.

Verses 12 to 14 describe his unlimited greatness over creation. He not only created everything, but he governs all of nature right down to the smallest detail. If God is so great that he can hold all the waters in his hand, all the dust of the earth in a basket, and weigh all the mountains on a scale and the hills in a balance, he doesn’t need any help. He is infinitely wise and powerful.

Verses 15 to 17 describe his supremacy over the nations. Verse 15 says that nations are like a drop in a bucket or dust on the scales. Verse 16 says that even the legendary forests of Lebanon are insufficient for a worthy burnt offering. Verse 17 says that all nations are as nothing before him. Add up all human power and might, and you have a piece of dust compared to the infinite power of a great God.

Verses 18 to 21 say that if you leave God out of the occasion, all you’re left with are empty idols made with human hands that can’t even move.

Verses 22 to 24 tell us that God is at work today in human affairs. We’re like grasshoppers. We’re not in control. Ortlund says, “The power brokers who seem so formidable to us, with their monumental egos and pretentious ambitions, are to God like little seedlings—scarcely planted—and God merely blows on them, with zero effort on his part,” and they’re gone.

Verse 26 says that God attends to the smallest star in the distant sky. The one sextillion stars—that’s one followed by 21 zeros—in the observable universe were all made by him by the greatness of his power, and not one of them is missing.

God is sovereign, eternal, and incomparable. He is the Creator, Sustainer, and Ruler of all. Nothing in creation rivals his power or glory. We can’t even begin to comprehend his greatness. It may look like the world is going to swallow us up, but consider how the world looks to God. It’s infinitesimal to him. He’s got it all under his control.

That’s why God says in verse 25:

To whom then will you compare me,
that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

Lift your eyes and trust in the God who is infinitely greater than anything we face. Behold the greatness of God. What are you worried about? His intent for you is good, and his greatness is unfathomable.

We need these truths when our worlds are in chaos. We need to understand God’s good intent for us, and we need to understand God’s incomparable greatness. But there’s one more thing we need to understand.

We need to understand and accept God’s invitation (40:27-31)

Our problem is that we’re a lot like Isaiah’s intended audience. As they sat in exile, they believed the words of verse 27: “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God.” They felt abandoned in their suffering, but it was only because they lacked perspective, which is our problem, too.

Here’s the perspective we need:

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
(Isaiah 40:28–31)

In our feelings of abandonment, we need a grander vision of God. We need to grasp God’s eternal nature, limitless power, and unsearchable wisdom. Unlike humans, who grow tired and faint, God never grows weary. But he gives strength to the weak and weary, and he renews the power of those who trust him. Stop focusing on your limitations and problems and instead trust in the God who promises to sustain and empower us.

But notice the invitation. It’s an invitation to the faint, for those who have no strength, for those who are exhausted and without hope. What is the invitation? To wait.

What does it mean to wait? It means that in Babylon, you keep looking to God in hope that every one of his promises will come true. In the wilderness, you trust in God, believing that he is all-powerful and has good intentions for you. It means when you feel abandoned, weary, and discouraged, that you heed Isaiah’s call, “Behold your God!” It means living with confident, eager expectation, trusting in promises not yet fulfilled.

If you have not trusted in this Lord, there is no one else like him. Come to him today through Jesus. He will receive you in your weakness and give you everything you need. We'd love to talk to you about how to do this.

If you are in Jesus and you're overwhelmed today, know that he has not abandoned you. His plans for you are good, and his greatness is limitless. He invites you to connect your weaknesses to his power, offering you everything you need.