Even to your old age, I am He. And to gray hairs, I will carry you. I have made and I will bear. I will carry and will save.
– Isaiah 46:4
Wow, what a beautiful promise from God to all of us.
Isaiah 46:4 reminds us God will sustain us all the days of our lives.
So even those of you who are listening to this and you’re younger, you’re maybe near the beginning of your life and the thought of gray hairs feels a long way away from you. I want to encourage you to be encouraged by God’s Word here, that he’s not just promised to carry you when you’re eight years old or you’re 18 years old. He’s promised to carry you when you’re 88 years old, if He gives you that many years. You have confidence that God will carry you. Not just now, but all the days of your life.
And for those of you who are closer to 88 or I would just say to any one of us who feels the effects of waning body, waning strength, waning eyesight, more aches, more pains, more challenges in health as you grow older, hear God saying to you today in Isaiah 46:4, “To your old age, I am he. To gray hairs I will carry you. I have made you and I will bear you up.” Amidst the pains, amidst the health challenges, amidst the doctor’s appointments, amidst all that old age might bring, I will bear you up and I will carry you.
What a beautiful picture of God’s love for us. He carries us and I will save you. Don’t you just love how God’s word leads us to pray. God, we praise you as the one who promises to carry us all the days of our lives. However many years you give us for all who trust in you, you have made us, you will bear us up. You will carry us, and you will save us.
Isaiah 46:4 reminds us not to trust on our own strength.
Oh God, we praise you as our maker, as the one who bears us up, as the one who carries us and as our savior. And God, I pray in light of this verse over those who are younger, I pray that they would look to you as their strength today, as their hope today that they would not trust in themselves and that they would not presume upon years to come.
God we know that none of us, no matter how young or no matter how healthy we might be, none of us is guaranteed tomorrow. So God help us to glorify you today with the day you’ve given us, and we pray you’d carry us today. Bear us up today. Save us from our sin and ourselves all day long today, and use our lives today for your glory and God to the extent with which you give us more and more years.
And for those who are more advanced than yours, for those with gray hairs or other signs of old age, God, I pray that you would bear them up today. That you would remind them that you are their maker and the one who is carrying them today. And we pray that you would save them continually from themselves and from sin, today.
And God we pray that you would help their faith to grow in deeper ways through old age than they’ve ever experienced before. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner mind, heart, our inner self being renewed day by day, we pray that over those who are advancing in age. We pray that over our lives, all of us. Regardless of what age we’re at. God, we want to be renewed more inwardly today than we were yesterday.
Prayer for the Nagarchi People
God, we pray for the Nagarchi people of Bangladesh. This Muslim people group of 20,000, no-known followers of Jesus among them. They don’t know you as the one who will save them from their sins.
God, we pray especially for those who are in old age. Those who are approaching eternity right now. Those who have never even heard the good news of your love for them. God, we pray that they would be reached with the gospel… With the good news of your salvation, your caring, your bearing for all who trust in you Jesus God. We pray please cause the gospel to spread to the Nagarchi people of Bangladesh. That they might experience your salvation. Please help us to live as long as we have years on this earth… In this mist of life you’ve given to us. Help us to live to spread the good news of your grace to people around… To peoples around the world. In Jesus’ name we pray according to Isaiah 46:4, Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
