Colossians 1:11 — divine power spent on patience
11being strengthened in every virtue, in accord with the power of his glory, with all patience and longsuffering, with joy,
The surprise is where the power is sent. Paul invokes the power of God’s glory and applies it to patience and longsuffering — not to extraordinary results.
Short answer
Colossians 1:11 asks that readers be strengthened in every virtue, drawing on the power that belongs to God’s glory, for patience and longsuffering, and with joy. It is part of a prayer, and the striking detail is where that power lands: on enduring, not on achieving.
- Written by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 2 min read
The verse sits in the middle of a long sentence, which is why it is rarely read alone. Read closely, it contradicts the expectation its own language creates.
Where this verse appears
Paul writes to a community he neither founded nor visited. The opening of the letter is a prayer: that they be filled with knowledge of what God wills, walk worthily, and bear fruit in every good work.
Verse 11 continues that request, and the verse after it closes the prayer with thanksgiving. So this is not a promise made to someone; it is a petition made on their behalf.
What it says
The construction builds an expectation and frustrates it on purpose. The power of his glory is vocabulary of magnitude — the same field used to speak of resurrection. And the stated destination of that power is patience and longsuffering, two words describing precisely what is slow.
Our primary English text, the Catholic Public Domain Version, adds a detail worth noticing: it says being strengthened in every virtue, where many Bibles read "with all might". The strengthening is described as moral rather than muscular, which fits what the sentence goes on to ask for.
The last word is the hardest to apply. "With joy" is not decoration: it is what separates endurance from resignation. And because the sentence is a prayer, it quietly concedes that this is not produced by effort. It is requested, because it cannot be manufactured.
What to do with it today
If you are in a situation that will not change and you have run out of energy for asking it to change, this verse shows another possible request: not the end of the wait, but strength to cross it without hardening.
One concrete way to use it is to turn it into prayer for other people, which is what it is in the letter. Praying for someone by name for patience and joy is far more specific than praying that things work out.
A prayer to carry with you
Lord, I have been asking for this to end. Today I ask for something else: steadiness to keep going, patience with those beside me, and a joy that does not wait for the situation to turn. Amen.