God Will Sustain You | How Does God Sustain Us

God is your Sustainer! Whatever season you are experiencing right now, wherever good or bad, God is there to sustain you. Yes, even in those hard... unbearable... times of suffering. In the NIV translation, Psalm 55:22 reads “Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.” The King James Version writes it like this, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.”

How Does God Sustain Us?

Lexico by Oxford defines Sustain as, “strengthen or support physically or mentally.” God gives us strength and supports physically and mentally. It is so comforting to know that the Lord is the one who sustains us in the good times and the bad. We are not to look to our own strength to sustain us, because our own strength would fail us. Our strength is found only in the Lord. Just like how we need the sacrifice of Christ to cover our sins, we are too weak to rely on our strength to get through times of suffering and must look to the Lord to be our strength. 

Let's take a moment to review the meaning of the word–Sustain. While you read through these definitions, think about how each definition can describe God as your sustainer. Dictionary.com defines Sustain as:

• to support, hold, or bear up from below; bear the weight of, as a structure.
• to bear a burden, charge, etc.
• to undergo, experience, or suffer (injury, loss, etc.); endure without giving way or yielding.
• to keep (a person, the mind, the spirits, etc.) from giving way, as under trial or affliction.
• to keep up or keep going, as an action or process.
• to supply with food, drink, and other necessities of life.

Wow, that is so encouraging! The word sustain can define how the Lord sustains us! Which one stood out to you the most? Was there one that resonated with you in the season that you are experiencing? The synonyms for sustain are encouraging as well... help, defend, carry, and comfort. God helps you... defends you... carries you... comforts you... and the list goes on. God will sustain you!

What Does "God Will Sustain You" Mean?

God is completely capable of carrying our burdens; we are not capable of carrying our burdens on our own. In fact, God alone is the only one who sustains us. We must continually cast our cares on the Lord because He cares for us. 1 Peter 5:7 NIV says, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

In times of stressful situations and hardships, such as illness, financial worries, death, or any uncertainty, the Lord knows about them from beginning to end and He can make “all things work together for good.” Romans 8:28 KJV says, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” God is the only one who can see our lives from the very beginning to the very end. As humans, we tend to only see things from our perspective. Our human perspective can be worrisome during hardships, but that is why we need to look to God and His perspective. For we know that God’s perspective is the utmost perspective which can see infinitely beyond how we do. 

Therefore, we do not have to worry when things are out of our control, because we know who is in control. Now, let's look back to the end of Psalm 55:22. It reads “…he will never let the righteous fall.” And KJV says, “he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” Nothing can happen to us that He does not allow. This doesn't mean that we will not have times of trouble or hardship. Through our hardships, we are reminded how much we need God. We may not even ever know the reason for our unfortunate circumstances, but we know that God does. The Lord has His people in His hands. He is working all things out. 

The Lord is our foundation, who gives us the strength to persevere in life. The Lord is why we do not give up or give way, especially in those hard times. We desperately need our relationship with God, because without Him we would be lost. Sometimes we can forget that we are helpless without God. In times when life is going great, it is tempting to think that we can trust in ourselves to sustain in our lives. Although we must trust in the Lord, and not look to ourselves. The Lord is our Father who provides for His children. Let’s choose to seek God and praise God in the good times and the bad. Let’s choose to lift His Name when our hearts are heavy in the lowest valley. God will sustian you, my friend!

Sustain in the Bible – What Does the Bible Say About Sustain?

“Cast your cares on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall. But you, O God, will bring down the wicked into the pit of corruption; bloodthirsty and deceitful men will not live out half their days.”

Psalm 55:22-23, NIV

“For forty years you sustained them in the desert; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen.”

Nehemiah 9:21, NIV

“Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”

Psalm 51:12, NIV  (This is a Psalm of David, which was when the prophet Nathan came to David after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.)

“Surely God is my help; the LORD is the one who sustains me.”

Psalm 54:4, NIV

“The LORD watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.”

Psalm 146:9, NIV

“Great is our LORD and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit. The LORD sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground.”

Psalm 147:5-6, NIV

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”

Hebrews 1:3, NIV