Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved. (Psalm 55:22—NKJV)

The concept of receiving sustaining grace from God is quite profound for every believer. Every act of grace on the part of God retains the character of being fully undeserved, unmerited, and solely derived from the faithfulness of God to His commitments to His Son, and so to His own people. Grace is God’s bearing of Himself toward His children, always in the context of loving favor.

One of His gracious promises is found in our verse. He promises to every believer the grace of sustaining provision. We all know what it is to be sustained. When a family goes for a long drive for vacation, there must be adequate food and rest in order to endure the trip. When you are bone weary, hungry, and exhausted there is nothing quite as refreshing as a solid meal and a bit of a stretch. The English word “sustain” is a combination of “under” and “to hold.” It means to support from below, to carry the weight or burden, maintain by providing the necessities, and to support the validity of something. The Hebrew word in Psalm 55 is faithfully translated by “sustain” because it means to hold up, to nourish, to furnish the means of living.

The particular word God chose for “sustain” carries a sense of capacity, for its other meaning is “to contain.” In other words, there are some earthly preparations which, with all good intention, are meant to sustain someone, but they just simply may not have the staying power or capacity to fulfill their commitment. They fail when they are put to the test, and sometimes with disastrous consequences. Not so with God—He will nourish you and He has the capacity to fulfill His promise. He will do it! Let’s see what other special words God chose to teach about His sustaining grace.

“Cast” is a word with fascinating imagery. It means “to fling, throw down, to neglect and abandon.” God uses it to describe how He handles the sin of every repentant believer. Isaiah 38:17 reads, “…You have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back.” On the merits of the shed blood of Jesus Christ, God tosses away the sin and its guilt away from the repentant believer. The believer is ridded of the sin as God tosses it behind.

Applying this meaning to our verse, we find that God commands the believer to toss away his burden to the Lord (Adonai, Master). What is this “burden?” Once again, the Hebrew word is uniquely chosen by God. It literally means “which He has given.” The burden upon the believer is also from out of the grace of God in that it is “supplied, given, your lot.” 1 Peter 5:7 states, “Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.” God gives you the tests to approve you, and so you must give Him the burden of it.

The burden often translates into the worries and anxieties of the “just man” as our text speaks of the “righteous.” This is not to imply that all outcomes are equal (as “justice” is so often misdefined and misunderstood today). Rather, it speaks to the straight dealing character toward both God and man of the just and virtuous believer, through thick and thin.

God’s sustaining grace is further seen in the phrase, “He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.” Permit is the translation of the Hebrew word for “give.” God will not give over the man of integrity to be moved out from his integrity. Such movement is akin to the idea of mountains (something that should be stable and rock-firm) being shaken and shifted. A man of integrity is expected by all who view him to maintain that rock-like integrity no matter what the pressures, but no man within himself can sustain such integrity. It is only of God that sustaining grace is furnished, along with the testing, sufficient to carry the obedient man of integrity through to the other side of the test with his integrity intact. The wind may blow the leaves and branches, but the root remains firmly planted!

Be assured that God never orders for any humble and obedient Christian what God cannot pay for. It is up to each believer to live in faithful integrity to his call and cast every burden upon the Father, knowing God will faithfully sustain. Trust and obey.