Letting God in Right Where We Are

[HKHaugan]

Letting God in Right Where We Are 

“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you (Is.46:4).”  Remember up front, as we look at this verse, it is the Father making these promises through His Son Jesus. 

This verse carries several contexts.  Like all the Prophets, they hold a primary theme showing a spiritual God dealing with a spiritual people.  But He deals with them individually.  While addressed to a whole people, it is individual hearts God is instructing within the people.  Here are several contexts that help us understand His direction: 

First, God wants us to know He is personally aware of each one of us.  That’s because He knows our tendency to think of self before Him.  In this case, the example is those of us who are old.  But it can apply to any age.  

Second, the verse gets us to shift from the physical self to a spiritual God because He is reminding us we are spiritually created.  Therefore, He is the only One who can sustain us. 

Third, it is God who conceived us, designed us, created us, started us to function.  It is the Holy Spirit who guides our function.

 God gives us three promises.  He will carry, sustain and rescue us.  The only way to understand this is to preface all thinking spiritually.  We begin the way we began, in the Spirit. 

First, grace is the sustaining power of God that carries us.  Grace is the attitude of God that looks at the heart, knows its quirks and qualities and carries us whether we realize it or not.  Grace is the spiritual atmosphere we breathe in.  Think about all the times we faced the unknown with its total unpredictability and we arrived on the other side of whatever came our way.  Grace carries.

 Second, when we are spiritually awakened, He sustains us because we are sinners and sin, our self-centeredness, interrupts the flow of our spiritual relationship with God.  It’s so easy to get distracted by what we consider perceived needs which we allow to override our real needs which are first spiritual.  The way He does this is by giving us the Scripture, His Word, to correct our course when we are distracted.  Of course, when we go off course our recourse is His Holy Spirit that makes the Word come alive in us. 

 Third, when we do go off course He rescues us.  Spiritually alive, we survive and thrive.  It’s when we apply the Word to our every next moment, our conscious moments, when the events of our lives take place, it is the Holy Spirit who counsels and assists us in the way we handle the events of our lives.  The Word of God is our life preserver in the seas of panic and confusion, when choices have to be made and only the Spirit can rescue us.  When the waters rise and the wind blows and the power grids fail us, the Holy Spirit rescues us in ways not understood until we rely on Him.  Just this one verse is filled with assurance and power, His power.

 “I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth (Ps.121:1-2),” my constant reminder that I am not a human being having a spiritual experience.  I am a spiritual being having a human experience.