Divine sustainability

Fashionable words, we all know them, don't we? They pop up like mushrooms in newspapers, magazines, and online.

You don't remember reading or hearing them quite as often before, but suddenly they're trending on X, and using them in any essay or article guarantees a successful reading.

Such a word is 'sustainable'. There is sustainable energy, sustainable fashion, sustainable development, and sustainable economic growth. I am sure you can come up with more.

I remember I had to look up the meaning of the word 'sustainable' when I first read it (as English is not my first language). It means as much as: 'To be able to continue or maintain something at the same rate or level for a period of time.' Hhm, quite a nice definition.

It comes from the verb 'to sustain' which means to assist, comfort, continue, encourage, help, preserve, or save. A good meal sustains us. Hope sustains us in difficult times. But someone can also sustain (suffer) injuries.

Now, words like sustainable and sustainability may be trendy in our time, but they are certainly not new. 👉God is a sustainer by nature!

Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me (Psalm 54:4). 

Yes, He is the One. Not the government, not a program, not legislation, not ideology. God is the One who assists me, comforts me, preserves me, and saves me. Not just once or twice, not just more or less... but He maintains His care for me at the same level!

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 (Isaiah 46:4).

How wonderful. I love these promises in God's Word. Talking about sustainable energy! His Word revives me and holds me up. And this goes so much further than just personal encouragement, it is global. About Jesus, it is written:

The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command  (Hebrews 1:3).

Jesus sustains everything by His Word. In Him all things hold together, even if it seems the world (your world maybe?) is falling apart. Now, that is what I would call divine sustainability!