I Will Bear

Isaiah 46:4

Even to your old age I am He. And even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; Even I will carry, and will deliver you.

This is my favorite verse in the Bible. It has been for the last nine years. I “happened” to come across it as a verse of the day on a website and it immediately spoke to me where I was and exactly how I needed. It took no effort to memorize. I basically saw it, knew it, and remembered where it was. This never, ever happens to me. I am probably the single worst memorizer I have ever known. But this stuck and has stuck with me ever since.

In an age where we are told to carry ourselves, fill our needs, and do what we want, this verse is important for us to remember. If we forget the principles it speaks to, we will quickly find ourselves walking away from God and the faith that saves us. It is, I believe, a vital verse, and one that remains relevant, especially in our current age.

In this chapter of Isaiah, God is warning His people Israel about the powerlessness of idols compared to His ability to save. In fact God begins by saying “Bel bows down, Nebo stoop; their idols were on the beasts and on the cattle. Your carriages were heavily loaded, a burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together; they could not deliver the burden, but have themselves gone into captivity.”

Bel and Nebo were both ancient idols: false gods people worshipped without any power to aid. God go on to state that despite paying for an idol to be made, prostrating before them, and crying out, it could not move, save, or even answer the one in trouble. It had not power to do anything.

I wonder how often we do this in our own lives. We may not bow down to a statue, but often we look to everything except God to save us. We turn to our family, or finances, or job, or doctors, or hobbies, hoping they will take away the pain or give us what we think we need, when what we really need is to turn our faces to the One who can truly save us from it all. This is not to say that any of these things are bad – not at all! in fact God gives them for our good and to help us through life! But as another preacher once said, “when a good thing becomes a god thing it becomes a bad thing.”

God reminds us that He is just as strong to save today as He always has been. He will not leave us, forsake us, or fail us. He can and will carry us to the end, and bear us to His side. He says “even I will carry, and will deliver you.”

Let us be those who use the blessings and helps God has given us, and who also remember where those blessings and helps have come from. Let us turn our faces toward Him knowing He cares for us. Let us be those who remember the words of God through Isaiah: “Even to your old age I am He. And even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; Even I will carry, and will deliver you.”