Today I read this verse that is part of an OT prayer of confession that contrasts the goodness of God with the failure of His people to obey Him. Nehemiah 9:21 says: “Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.”
It may seem a trivial thing, but our clothes seldom wear out, even our shoes. They last so long and so well that I get tired of them long before they are shabby and worn. We’ve learned to purchase classic styles; otherwise our closet would be full ‘out of style’ stuff that looks new and our clothing budget would be greatly inflated.
God sustains His people in other ways. One is giving peace when most people would be so afraid that they cannot sleep.
Psalm 3:1–6. “O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul, ‘There is no salvation for him in God.’ Selah But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.”
Another sustaining work of God is with His people who are sick, even keeping them from death.
Psalm 41:2–3. “The Lord protects him and keeps him alive; he is called blessed in the land; you do not give him up to the will of his enemies. The Lord sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness you restore him to full health.”
While we can idolize personal comfort, trusting God in illness makes an enormous difference. We knew a Christian man who had a type of cancer that is usually fatal and painfully slow in taking a life. God sustained this man pain-free during the months of his illness leading to the day He took him home. Since then, we’ve heard about others who experienced that same sustaining power when ill. Some were healed, some went home, yet the Lord kept them free from the agony that often accompanies illness.
These days, even a quick glance at the morning news often fills my heart with burdens. Lawlessness, severe storms, deadly fires, tragic accidents, extraordinarily little good news and much sad news puts a heaviness in my mind that distracts me from the power of God. But He says:
Psalm 55:22. “Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.”
A few minutes in prayer makes a difference. As I pray, the Lord lifts the burdens from my heart. If they return, it is only because He wants me to talk to Him again about them.
God’s sustaining power in my life is not just about me. I often call myself ‘God’s spoiled brat’ but His goodness is not for me alone — I’m supposed to pass it on and sustain others.
Isaiah 50:4–5. “The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward.”
To me, this is another marvel. I’ve always felt useless when visiting people in the hospital or when trying to encourage someone who is depressed. Yet there are times when I’ve said something and was told, “I needed to hear that,” or “You said just the right thing,” or even “God used your words to lift me up” and in those times I shake my head for I had no idea that my words were a gift to sustain someone else. God is such a wonder!
The only NT verse to use sustain repeats the idea of God’s power to gift His people with whatever is needed at the time of need, but also to say that His sustaining power is endless:
1 Corinthians 1:4–9. “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
As I GAZE INTO HIS GLORY and see how He sustains His people, what else is there to do but worship Him with all my heart!
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