Are you carrying what is supposed to carry you?

I was reading Isaiah 46, and as I went through the passage, I saw something I had not realised before. In verse 4, God tells His own people four things that, to me, reveal something beautiful about the Father’s heart:

“I have made you, and I will bear;
Even I will carry, and will deliver you.”
— Isaiah 46:4

I made you. I will bear you. I will carry you. I will deliver you.

What struck me even more was what God says immediately before this. He reminds His people that He has carried them from the womb, from birth, and then says that even to their old age and gray hairs, He will continue to carry them.

In other words, God is not saying, I carried you until you became strong enough to manage on your own. He is saying, I carried you when you couldn’t carry yourself, and I will still be carrying you when you are old.

That is the Father’s heart.

A Father Who Runs

It reminded me of the prodigal son. He took what belonged to him, went away and squandered everything he had. When everything was gone, he remembered his father’s house and decided to return. He came home prepared to become a servant, but his father ran towards him, embraced him and restored him as a son.

The son had exhausted what was in his hands, only to discover that his real security had never been his inheritance. It was his father.

And that made me ask myself a rather uncomfortable question:

If God is carrying me, what am I carrying as god?

Pretty heavy theological question, or perhaps just a simple introspective one. However you take it, it made me think about the soft, unassuming things in my life that I expect to carry me. They don’t look like idols. In fact, most of them are perfectly good things. Yet knowingly or unknowingly, I can ask them to do something for me that my Father has already promised to do.

I, for one, have carried quite a few of them.

The Soft, Unassuming Idols

One is my career. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying we shouldn’t work hard. The problem is when I begin expecting my career to carry my security. Suddenly, my work is no longer simply something God has given me to do; it has become the thing I believe will keep me safe.

Then there is status. The material things I have, what I have achieved, the position I hold and how people perceive me can all contribute to my sense of importance. Somewhere along the way, I can begin believing that my status will cover me.

Then there are relationships and connections. I used to think that the higher I was connected in the food chain, or the larger my network became, the safer I would be. Surely, if something went wrong, somebody I knew would know somebody who could help.

And here is a new one I have been thinking about: my children. Somewhere in my mind is the hope that my children will grow up, do well and perhaps take care of me one day. There is absolutely nothing wrong with children caring for their parents. But then I went back to Isaiah 46 and noticed what God Himself says:

“Even to your old age, I am He,
And even to gray hairs I will carry you!”
— Isaiah 46:4

That stopped me.

My children may care for me, God may even use them to care for me, but they were never meant to carry the burden of being my security. My Father has already said that He will carry me even into my old age. Perhaps that is the real danger with these soft, unassuming idols. They are often good things, but I begin asking them to do the Father’s job.

Gods That Have to Be Carried

Then I realised why the beginning of Isaiah 46 is so powerful.

Bel and Nebo were gods of Babylon, but these gods had to be carried. Isaiah describes them being placed on animals and transported around. They were so heavy that they became “a burden to the weary beast.”

Later Isaiah says:

“They bear it on the shoulder, they carry it
And set it in its place, and it stands;
From its place it shall not move.”
— Isaiah 46:7

They worship it. They bear it. They carry it. They set it up. And after all that effort, it just stands there.

It cannot move.
It cannot answer.
It cannot save.

And suddenly I saw myself in the passage.

I thought my career was carrying me, while I was exhausting myself trying to carry my career. I thought status would cover me, while I was working to maintain that status. I thought connections would secure me, while I was trying to maintain those connections.

The things I thought were carrying me had quietly become things I was carrying.

Maybe that is one reason some of us are so tired. Not every burden we carry is something God asked us to carry.

I’ve Got You, and I’ve Got This

Then another question naturally comes to my mind. If I stop trying to make all these things carry me, what happens to my future? What about the things that need to happen? What about everything I cannot control? Surely I have to make something happen.

And God seems to answer that question later in the same chapter with another set of four:

“Indeed I have spoken it;
I will also bring it to pass.
I have purposed it;
I will also do it.”
— Isaiah 46:11

There are the Father’s words again.

Earlier He says: I made you. I will bear you. I will carry you. I will deliver you.

Now He says: I have spoken. I will bring it to pass. I have purposed. I will do it.

Perhaps, in the simplest possible way, the Father’s heart in Isaiah 46 is saying two things to me:

I’ve got you and I’ve got this.

I don’t need to ask my career to be my father. I don’t need status to tell me who I am. I don’t need my connections to guarantee my future. I don’t need to place the weight of my old age upon my children. These may all be wonderful gifts through which God provides, but none of them needs to become God.

The Father who says, “I will carry you,” is also the God who says, “I will do it.”

So perhaps the question I need to leave myself with is not simply, What am I carrying?

It is this: Am I exhausting myself carrying something I expect to carry me, when my Father has been carrying me all along?