My mom was talking to me many months ago about how she often prays, "carry me, I'm a limp noodle". I believe she said it better than all the theologians and poets and John Calvins and Augustines and Charles Spurgeons ever could. There was beautiful simplicity and heart in those words that I haven't stopped thinking about since.
It reminded me of what God spoke to His people:
“Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; 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 46:3–4
In David Guzik's commentary, he connects this promise wonderfully to Jesus' words.
"This is the same Fatherly care Jesus spoke of:
'Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.' -Luke 12:6–7
When we understand that God has made us, and we are valuable to Him, then we can trust Him to carry us."
Our Creator knit us together and formed us, and wants us to intimately know Him as truly as He knows us. And so, He made and He will bear, for Jesus bore the full and crushing weight of the gaping hole between Creator and creation.
The simple prayer to carry me holds deep Scriptural significance, and though it is only two words, it is asking many things in unison. I'll dwell on three ideas that are represented in this prayer, surrender, presence, and remembrance:
1. Surrender
To pray carry me is to completely surrender your own will and have faith that the Lord's will is greater. It is saying, carry me wherever, take me wherever, Your will be done.
"And [Jesus] said, 'Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.'” -Mark 14:36
To be carried, you must have complete trust in the one who is carrying you. You must be "a limp noodle", at rest with not where you are at, but who you are with, who is carrying you and upholding you. We may not know where we will be taken throughout our lives, but in John Gill's commentary on Isaiah 46 he reminds us that the road eventually leads "to...entrance into glory", and Christ will deliver us "out of all affliction; out of all temptations; out of the hand of every enemy; from a final and total falling away; from a body of sin and death; from death eternal, and wrath to come; and even at last from the grave and all corruption."
I don't want to bypass the fact that Jesus asked His Father to "remove this cup" in the first place, however. Surrender does not equate with the inability to pray how you deeply feel. I believe true surrender is only able to be accomplished after bringing your honest and desperate petitions before God (not ignoring them), and then having the strength to say "yet not what I will, but what you will." That is much harder to do than trying to push out of your mind what you want to happen because full surrender is acknowledging what you want to be done, and then saying, "but I could give that up too, because I know You will work all things together for my good".
2. Presence
There is a song called The Goodness of Jesus whose lyrics read,
"Satisfied, He is all that I need
May it be, come what may, that I rest all my days
In the goodness of Jesus."
With surrender comes the satisfying life we can only find through Him, in Him, with Him. If we only have His presence, we are completely satisfied, and "come what may" because rest is always inevitably found in the arms of Jesus, despite what may be happening around us. Just as He has not forgotten about a single sparrow, so He has not forgotten about you.
Let us not chase after the gifts He provides us, peace and joy and healing and fuzzy feelings, more than we seek Him, but instead allow the presence of God to be enough in our lives.
Oftentimes, we pray without feeling a thing, without some sort of revelation, understanding, or anything at all. Silence. Deafening, annoying, infuriating silence.
Jesus has always been "gentle and lowly", why do we expect His voice to be loud and booming? His presence is still with us always, but the ways in which we know it change, falter, or strengthen because of the shortsighted view we have. There's this term I hear all the time, "spiritual drought", and every single time I hear it, it's interesting to note that the speaker always considers themselves in a spiritual drought simply because God isn't as "loud" as they wish Him to be. Even more interesting, there are times in a believer's life in which God is "loud'', and that's considered to be the "mountaintop". This is where you want to be, on the long road of chasing the feeling of God's presence instead of just His presence. What if the mountaintop was instead the long days and nights of earnestly seeking after a God who seems quiet and distant? Seasons of life spent pouring over the Word not to get an emotional high but to simply seek His presence? Perhaps those are the days that nourish and feed our souls more than the moments in which God seems loudest, and perhaps those are where we are nurtured most, until one day we are made astonishingly aware that this place of sorrowful searching and crying out to God is our mountaintop, and we have been carried along in the palm of His hand the entire time. And that moment is a beautiful one because you grew into it. It was not given to you so you could have a fleeting moment of awareness of God's presence, it was given so you would grow into an entire life of awareness of God's presence.
Many months ago, I wrote out a little poem that had to do with these seasons (nobody make fun of me, please...I am no poet). An excerpt from it is this, "Even when I lack the emotions, my praise matters to my Father...a plant cannot grow unless watered and nurtured every day / it is so with the garden of the heart / somedays a downpour of felt love come, somedays nothing / but under the harsh sun and eyes watering from the heat / and every fiber of my being wanting to go somewhere else / do something else / I water my future garden / I water dirt every day tenderly with Scripture and prayer and affection / somedays I run out expectantly to water my garden / other days my flesh screams against it / I do it anyway, I know my Father loves that / because I get to know Him ever more deeply / and so my garden grows." It's a simple poem and by no means a masterpiece, but it nonetheless speaks volumes about what seasons of silence are like for us keepers and workers of the garden, it often feels like we're watering dirt, but that is precisely the route in which a lasting garden will grow.
But, the Spirit of Jesus is as constant as the wind rustling tree branches. Perhaps our months or years of longing prepare us to actually receive Him into the parts of us we are unwilling to surrender.
"On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you.' When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, 'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.' And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.'" -John 20:19–23
It would be possible that the disciples, had they not known Jesus, learned from Him and loved Him, could have stood there as He breathed His Spirit over them, and not received. There was a time when the disciples were simply students of Jesus before they even considered it possible for themselves to be actual temples of His Spirit (what a crazy idea that would seem to them)! There was an article I read once by the Gospel Coalition that I couldn't find anywhere, but the idea was making the Holy Spirit feel at home in us. I love that idea because I feel like those seasons I described above of humble patience and earnest seeking are seasons of Jesus preparing just that, a home for us to receive all that He is.
Long story short, the presence of God is not diminished because of our shortsighted awareness of Him. Sometimes, the quiet nature of God is just as vital (though more difficult to see) as anything else, I would argue even more so. At all points in our lives though, we give thanks, because He is more than present, He is truly and deeply with. We are grafted in to abide in Jesus deeply, not shallowly. We simply cannot be taken away or cast out, we are dwelling in His palm, the safest place we could ever be.
3. Remembrance
God first reminds His people "I am He" before He ever gives His promise to carry them. It reminds them of who He is...and that is I AM. We can trust God's promises because He has always been faithful.
The one who split the Red Sea?
"I am He."
The one who searches, purges, and knows my heart but loves me anyway?
"I am He."
The one who lived and died and rose and ascended and is coming back for me?
"I am He."
The only one worthy and holy and able to break the seal and open the scrolls?
"I am He."
Ah, then surely here is one we can trust to carry us! Here is the one we can feel confident submitting to if it means dwelling constantly in the presence of, whether we are aware of that presence or not! Because of who Christ is, we can trust Him when He says He will carry His own.
May the prayer to carry me be on our breath always, bringing our hearts to focus on its greatest desire- and that is the goodness we find in the Lord Jesus.
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