He carries the lambs
The gentle shepherd of Isaiah
Isaiah 40 opens with two of the most welcome words in the Bible: Comfort, comfort my people. And it goes on to describe a God of staggering power — who measures the oceans in the hollow of his hand, weighs the mountains on scales, and sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, to whom the nations are like a drop in a bucket.
And then, without any sense of contradiction, the same chapter pictures that almighty God as a shepherd bending down. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them close to his heart, and gently lead those who have their young.
Notice the tenderness in the detail. The lambs too small to keep up are not left behind or driven; they are gathered up and carried against his chest. And the mother ewes, heavy and slow, are not hurried; they are gently led. The God who flings stars into space stoops to carry the weak ones at the pace they can bear.
“He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and will gently lead those who have their young.”
— Isaiah, of the LORD — Isaiah 40:11 (WEB)
When you cannot keep up, let yourself be gathered into the arms of a God strong enough to be gentle.
“In the wilderness you have seen how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went, until you came to this place.”
We assume God is impatient with our weakness, tapping his foot at the back of the flock, so we exhaust ourselves trying to keep pace. The interior work is to receive his gentleness as strength, not disappointment — to believe that the seasons you cannot march through are precisely when he carries you — and to stop performing strength you do not have.
Name the place you are too weak to keep up right now — grief, exhaustion, a failure. This week, instead of striving to march, pray to be carried: gather me into your arms; lead me gently at the pace I can bear.
When strength fails we assume God is tapping his foot at the back of the flock, so we hide the exhaustion and try to keep marching, or shrink away in shame. But the almighty One is the gentle one, strong enough to be tender — and the weakness you are ashamed of is precisely the lamb he gathers up and carries against his heart.
There are seasons when we cannot keep up — when grief, exhaustion, illness, or failure leave us unable to march along at the pace of the strong. We tend to assume God is impatient with our weakness, tapping his foot at the back of the flock. Isaiah says he does the opposite: he gathers the ones who cannot keep up into his arms and carries them.
The almighty God is also the gentle one, and his gentleness is not weakness but the strength that can afford to be tender. If you are a lamb too small for the journey right now, the invitation is not to try harder to keep pace. It is to be carried, close to the heart of the One who is strong enough to be gentle.
- Where am I too weak to keep up right now?
- Do I picture God impatient with my weakness, or gentle toward it?
- What would it mean to be carried rather than to keep marching?
Lord, I cannot keep up right now. Gather me into your arms; carry me close to your heart, and lead me gently at the pace I can bear. Amen.