Who Carries Whom?

I was reading this section in Isaiah the other day, Isaiah 46:1-4.

Bel bows down; Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts and livestock; these things you carry are borne as burdens on weary beasts.  They stoop; they bow down together; they cannot save the burden, but themselves go into captivity.
"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."

Bel and Nebo are Babylonian gods.  Bel is the title of Marduk, the patron-god of Babylon and the head of their pantheon and Nebo is his son, who became the chief god of the Assyrians.  Every year, the statue of Nebo would be taken to to the temple of Bel Marduk so that the gods could commune together as father and son.  When they were moved like this, the idols were literally burdens carried by weary beasts through the streets and down the roads.  Their gods were literally burdens to be borne by their worshipers.

From the distance of a couple thousand years, we may sit back and laugh at the foolishness of these worshipers.  Their gods were works of art, carved pieces of stone, cast pieces of metal.  Their followers had to move them, position them, clean them, and often took things further by "feeding" them--though of course they could not make the food disappear by themselves.  The idols were more helpless than even infants, and obviously were impotent to actually do anything for their followers.  Certainly we are more enlightened than they: we have no idols of stone or metal.

But sometimes, I think we are not so different.  Really, who bears the responsibility in our relationship with God?  We may no longer have to move around a big statue of Him, but are we obligated to serve Him in other ways?  Is He burdensome?  Are we compelled to carry Him out to the mission field, because He cannot find new converts Himself?  Are we required to give Him our money because He cannot provide for Himself?  Are we forced to inform Him of our needs and those of the people and world around us in prayer because He cannot find them out for Himself?  Whose responsibility is it to keep up the relationship?  Is it us,  striving forever to please a God who apparently cannot satisfy Himself?  Is it us, being oh-so-careful not to upset His delicate sensibilities?  If this is so, our God is a burdensome one indeed, borne about by feeble creatures like us--and probably of little help to us.

But this God is not the God of the Bible.  It is the God of the Bible who speaks out at the ridiculous procession of the burdensome gods, Bel and Nebo...who speaks still at our burdensome gods.  What He says is simply amazing.  When all the world is full of gods who are burdens, who need someone to care for and carry them, the God of the Bible says: "I will carry you!"  In fact, He has carried us, and He will, from birth to our old age.  He carries us; He cares for us.  He gives us the words and the opportunities to join Him on the mission field, where He is already at work finding new converts Himself.  He provides us with money and the strength to earn it, and asks in return only that we remember Who it came from and use it accordingly.  He knows everything.  He knows every problem and every word we will say in prayer, and so brings about answers to our prayers before we even say them.  Yet He asks us to pray to Him about our concerns anyway, so that we will remember that He already has them well in hand and we'll stop worrying about them.  He has laid it on Himself to keep up our relationship.  He made it possible by His redeeming blood.  He sustains it by the Holy Spirit and His own faithful nature: He cannot deny Himself.  He appeased His own demands in Christ, because He saw that we were incapable of doing so.  Though we offended Him deeply, He appeased His own sense of justice on the tree and now He freely offers forgiveness for our every wrong.

It seems to me a huge contrast between a god that I must carry, and the God Who carries me.  The former I may strive forever to appease and never see any benefit from.  But the latter, has done everything to be with me and loads me with benefits daily, such that I can never count them all.  This is the God who carries us!