Welcome to Pomoja Ministry. In our previous conversation,
we discovered something extraordinary about divine
intervention. Sometimes God changes the situation.
Sometimes God moves the enemy. Sometimes God
opens the sea. Sometimes God closes the mouth
of the lion. Sometimes God enters the furnace.
And sometimes, when our strength has reached
its limit and the journey becomes greater than
our ability to continue, God does something much
more intimate. He carries us. But there is something
about that revelation that I have not been able
to leave alone. Because after discovering that
Moses described Israel's journey through the
wilderness by saying, the Lord your God carried
you as a father carries his son. I began to wonder
whether being carried by God is actually much
bigger than what happens during our most difficult
moments. And then I came to Isaiah 46 and suddenly
the revelation became much larger. Because listen
to what God says, listen to me, you whom I have
upheld since your birth and have carried since
you were born. 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. There are
passages of scripture that you can read quickly,
and then there are passages where you need to
stop. This is one of them. Listen again to the
progression. I have upheld you. I have carried
you. I will sustain you. I will carry you. I
will rescue you. past, present, future. God is
not describing one emergency. He is describing
a relationship. He does not say, when you become
weak enough, perhaps I will carry you. He says,
essentially, I have been carrying you longer
than you realized. And perhaps that changes the
entire way we understand divine intervention.
Because maybe divine intervention is not simply
what God does when something goes wrong. Maybe
our entire lives are being sustained by interventions
we never see. Maybe there are things God prevented
that you will never know He prevented. Maybe
there are doors He closed that frustrated you
at the time but protected you from something
you could not see. Maybe there are relationships
that ended because God knew where they were taking
you. Maybe there are delays you interpreted as
rejection. that were actually protection. Maybe
there are moments when God redirected your steps
without ever explaining what was waiting on the
road you wanted to take. And maybe there are
prayers you thought God ignored because His answer
did not look like what you requested. What if
some of the greatest interventions of your life
are interventions you will never know happened?
That is the mystery. We celebrate the accident
God delivered us from. But how do you celebrate
the accident that never happened? Because God
redirected you five minutes earlier. We celebrate
the sickness God healed. But what about the danger
from which He protected you without ever allowing
you to know it was approaching? We celebrate
the enemy God defeated in front of us. But what
about the battles God fought that never reached
our door? We thank God for the doors He opened.
But perhaps eternity will reveal that we should
thank Him just as much for the doors He refused
to open, because divine intervention is not limited
to what we can recognize. And Isaiah 46 introduces
us to a God whose sustaining activity begins
long before we become conscious of it. I have
carried you since you were born. Think about
that. Before you understood faith, He carried
you. Before you understood prayer, he carried
you. Before you understood purpose, he carried
you. Before you knew what your life would become,
he carried you. Before you understood the battles
ahead, he carried you. And God says, even to
your old age and gray hairs, I will still be
there. There's no expiration date on his faithfulness.
There's no stage of your journey where God suddenly
says, you have come far enough, now continue
by yourself. The same God who carried you yesterday
says, I will carry you. Part one, the difference
between the gods you carry and the God who carries
you. But Isaiah 46 becomes even more powerful
when we understand why God said those words.
Because God was drawing a contrast. Babylon had
gods, bel -nabo, idols fashioned by human hands.
People considered them powerful. They decorated
them, honored them, bowed before them, trusted
them. But there was a problem. Those gods could
not move. If their worshippers wanted them somewhere
else, someone had to pick them up. Someone had
to place them on an animal. Someone had to transport
them. Someone had to protect them. Someone had
to carry the very god they were asking to carry
their burdens. And Isaiah paints an almost tragic
picture. The idols are loaded onto animals. The
animals become exhausted carrying the weight.
The people are tired. The animals are tired.
And the gods cannot help anyone, because the
gods themselves must be carried. Then the God
of Israel speaks, and essentially he says, I
am not like them. You do not carry me. I carry
you. What a distinction. False gods become burdens.
The living God carries burdens. False gods require
human strength to sustain them. The living God
becomes the strength sustaining humanity. False
gods must be protected. The living God protects.
False gods must be transported. The living god
says, I have carried you since birth, and even
when your hair becomes gray, I will still carry
you. And perhaps this is where this conversation
becomes uncomfortable, because we may not bow
before statues called Belle or Nebo today, but
humanity still creates things that we expect
to carry us. Money, positions, careers, relationships,
influence. connections, reputation, success,
education, titles, human approval. We place enormous
expectations upon these things. We say, perhaps
without words, if I can just reach this level,
I will be secure. If I can just earn this amount,
I will have peace. If this person stays in my
life, I will be okay. If I can maintain this
position, I will be safe. If people continue
respecting me, I will know who I am. And slowly,
without realizing it, we begin carrying things
that were never designed to carry us. We exhaust
ourselves maintaining an image. We exhaust ourselves
protecting a position. We exhaust ourselves trying
to control relationships. We exhaust ourselves
preserving people's opinions of us. We exhaust
ourselves carrying the very things we hoped would
eventually carry us. And then God says, put it
down. Because whatever you must constantly carry
in order for it to save you cannot be your savior.
There's only one who says, you do not have to
carry me, I will carry you. And perhaps this
explains why God sometimes allows the things
we leaned upon. to become unstable, not because
he wants to destroy us, but because he wants
to reveal what has actually been holding us.
Sometimes divine intervention looks like God
removing something you thought you needed so
that you can discover you are never being sustained
by it. The job changed, but somehow you survived.
The relationship ended, but somehow God sustained
you. The door closed, but another path appeared.
The people you expected to remain beside you
disappeared, but somehow you kept moving. The
resources became smaller, but somehow there was
still enough. And eventually you begin to understand
that thing was never carrying me. God was, and
this is why there are moments when God allows
our supports to shake. Because Hebrews tells
us that there are things that can be shaken,
and there are things that cannot be shaken. Sometimes
we have built our sense of security upon things
that can move, and God loves us too much to allow
temporary things to convince us that they are
permanent. So He brings us back to Himself, not
always comfortably, not always quickly, not always
with an explanation. but faithfully and eventually
we discover that underneath everything we thought
was holding us were the everlasting arms of God.
Part 2 As a father carries his son. Now go back
with me to Deuteronomy because Moses does not
merely say that God carried Israel. He tells
us how he carried them. As a father carries his
son. That changes everything. This is not the
picture of someone transporting an object. This
is relationship. This is affection. This is belonging.
A father does not carry his exhausted child because
the child has earned transportation. He carries
him because that is his son. And maybe this is
the revelation we were approaching in our previous
conversation. God does not carry you only because
you are weak. God carries you because you belong
to Him. Weakness may be the moment when you become
conscious of His arms, but relationship is the
reason those arms were available in the first
place. Israel was not perfect in the wilderness.
They complained. They doubted. They became afraid.
They questioned Moses. They questioned God. There
were moments when they wanted to return to Egypt.
There were moments of rebellion. And yet when
Moses looks backward over the journey, he says,
God carried you. That does not excuse rebellion.
It reveals mercy. Because if God's faithfulness
depended entirely upon Israel's emotional consistency,
Israel would never have reached the promised
land. And if we are truthful, There are seasons
when our own emotional consistency is not very
impressive either. There are mornings when faith
feels strong. There are nights when questions
become loud. There are moments when we declare
God's promises boldly. And there are moments
when all we can say is, Lord, help me. There
are seasons when prayer flows naturally. And
there are seasons when prayer feels like lifting
something heavier than ourselves. But the beauty
of the father's arms is that his strength is
not determined by the strength of the child he
is carrying. The child may be exhausted. The
father is not. The child may not know the road.
The father does. The child may not know how far
remains. The father knows. The child may fall
asleep in his arms. The father continues walking.
And somebody listening to me needs to hear this.
You have been afraid that because you are tired,
God must be tired of you. Those are two completely
different things. Your exhaustion does not exhaust
God. Your inability to understand does not confuse
God. Your weakness does not weaken God. and your
inability to see tomorrow does not mean God has
lost the road. Sometimes faith is not having
enough strength to run. Sometimes faith is simply
allowing yourself to be carried. And perhaps
that is why surrender is so difficult for strong
people. We are accustomed to walking. We are
accustomed to solving. We are accustomed to carrying
responsibilities. We are accustomed to being
the person others depend upon. We know how to
fight. We know how to work. We know how to endure.
But eventually, God may allow us to reach a place
where our greatest act of faith is no longer
doing something for Him. It is allowing Him to
do something for us. To sustain us. To hold us.
To lead us. To carry us. Because there are places
in the journey where your strength cannot take
you. But his arms can. And once you understand
that, divine intervention becomes much larger
than the miracle you are waiting to see. You
begin to recognize that perhaps the miracle has
already begun. Because you woke up this morning.
You are still believing. You are still praying.
You are still standing. You are still moving.
You still have a desire for God. Something inside
you still believes there is another chapter.
And after everything that tried to convince you
otherwise, you are still here. Maybe you have
been waiting for divine intervention to arrive,
but perhaps divine intervention has been underneath
you the entire time. Perhaps the reason you have
not fallen as far as you could have fallen is
because there were arms beneath you. And perhaps
the reason you have not been destroyed by everything
you have walked through is because the one carrying
you has already declared, I have made you. I
will sustain you. I will carry you. And I will
rescue you. And that raises another question.
If God carries us as a father carries his child,
where is he carrying us? Because God does not
carry his children without purpose. Israel was
being carried through a wilderness, yes. But
the wilderness was not the destination. There
was somewhere God was taking them. And maybe
that is the next mystery we need to explore.
Because divine intervention is not only about
what God is carrying you through. Sometimes the
greater revelation is what God is carrying you
toward. Maybe you thought God was carrying you
simply because you could no longer walk. But
what if there is another reason? What if God
is carrying you because there is somewhere you
still have to go? The wilderness was never Israel's
destination. The pit was never Joseph's destination.
The broom tree was never Elijah's destination.
And the shepherd does not find the sheep merely
to hold it in the place where he found it. He
places it upon his shoulders and carries it home.
So perhaps the question is no longer simply,
God, why are you carrying me through this? Perhaps
the question becomes, God, where are you carrying
me? Because divine intervention is not only about
what God is bringing you through. Sometimes divine
intervention is about what God is bringing you
toward. And that is where we will continue our
conversation next time. We are going to follow
Israel beyond the wilderness. We are going to
follow Joseph beyond the prison. We are going
to look at Elijah beyond the broom tree, and
we are going to discover that when God sustains
a life, there is often still an assignment, a
destination, a purpose or a promise ahead. So
until next time, stay encouraged, stay in faith,
and even when you cannot understand the road
beneath you, trust the arms that are carrying
you. Stay tuned as we continue our conversation.
in the mystery of divine intervention. Because
perhaps God is not simply carrying you through
something. Perhaps He is carrying you towards
something. Until next time, this is Pamoja Ministry.
One conversation, one story, one revelation at
a time. God bless you.