I will be your God throughout your lifetime—
    until your hair is white with age.
I made you, and I will care for you.
    I will carry you along and save you.

Isaiah 46:4

This morning Rebekah and I are enjoying a beautiful reminder that fall is just around the corner. Cooler temperatures are making a temporary statement of promise (courtesy of the heavy rains and thunderstorms that came through Thursday), and it looks to be a lovely weekend.

The storms yesterday, preceded by muggy unpleasant weather, then followed by the marvelous fresh air of today, remind me how varied our experiences can be from day to day. Sunday the air-conditioning goes out – Thursday the technician instals a new control panel. One day things are going smoothly at my parents’ house – another day there’s a new crisis. One week the grandchildren are happily enjoying in-person school for the first time in 18-months – the next, one has a bad cold and the other is throwing up!

Life is inconsistent at the best of times, a roller-coaster of ups and downs and sudden turns. Things go well, things mess up. People let you down, people build you up. The pandemic eases, then a new variant hits the country in full force. The car runs beautifully, the car breaks down.

There are countless examples.

Good News we can count on!

What we need is stability where it counts. And, fortunately, we have one sure truth everyone can hold onto and count on not just today and tomorrow but for eternity. “I made you,” God says, “and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.”

Again with the word “save.” Salvation is simply this: it is joining in with the work God is up to, participating in God’s initiatives of light, love, grace, mercy, justice, reconciliation, and promise.

As the text says, God has been my God throughout my lifetime – even now when my hair is white with age. God made me, God cares for me, and God will continue to carry me along and save me.

Salvation is God’s invitation. Not handed out later, not as some kind of reward; not to rescue me from this world so much as to stand alongside me in it, so we can work together – shoulder to shoulder with God.

Consistency, stability where it counts. The sure knowledge of God’s saving love – DEREK