I’m sitting here, chewing on a verse. Isaiah wrote it to people much older than me, but it hits me differently when I realize what previously defined me in my job is . . . gone. Am I the same person? Do I still have value?
“Even to your old age I will be the same, and even to your graying years I will bear you. I have done it, and I will carry you; and I will bear you and I will save you.” — Isaiah 46:4, NASB
Read that again slowly. God doesn’t just tolerate you as you move into your later years. He carries you into them!
Here’s something nobody warns you about: your job used to answer the identity question, “Who am I?” when you didn’t realize you were even asking it. Boss. Banker. Salesman. Doctor. Engineer. Foreman. Provider. The guy who gets it done. Then one day your calendar’s empty and that answer’s gone with it.
I think we should call this “the Carried Man” principle — not because it sounds catchy, but because it’s the only thing that makes sense. I’m not the guy who sells or builds or manages things anymore. I’m the guy being carried by the One who built me. And that isn’t a demotion. It’s the truest thing that’s ever been true about me.
If your identity’s been shaken loose lately — by retirement, by an empty house, by a mirror that doesn’t match who you feel like inside — you’re not alone, and you’re not finished. You’re being carried.
— Rick
