Carried by God

January 1, 2018

Yesterday’s reading in my Daily Light devotional linked together a series of texts with a common theme: God’s declaration that in all the troubles his people face, he has carried them, and will carry them. “The LORD your God carried you as a man carries his son...I bore you on eagles’ wings...In his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them...Even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you....I will carry and will save.”

The longer I live, the more keenly I am aware of God’s mercy and grace. I have tried to live honorably, to do my work well, to love as Christ commands, to be the man, husband, father, grandfather, and pastor God has called me to be. But in all that “trying,” I’ve also fallen short, and whether successful or not, it is God who has held me up. 

As the new year begins, I hope to cultivate a deeper awareness of how he has carried me, and how he continues to do so. None of us know what the year will bring, but as followers of Jesus Christ, we know who holds the future and brings it to us. The bulk of this first day of 2018 I spent plowing driveways. It’s not glamorous, is not part and parcel of any great movement of God’s Spirit, but where we live, it has to be done if people are going to be able to go to work the second day of 2018. I am grateful for the Carhartt jacket and overalls my wife gave to me for Christmas that kept me warm in the frigid weather today, for a tractor with a bucket loader that enabled me to do a job that otherwise would have been impossible for me, for a slow day and good health to get the jobs done. The year is off to a slow start. I’m sure it will pick up. Either way, I’m grateful to have made it this far...carried by God.