He is - He Will
As we continue exploring some of the “do not fear” passages in scripture we are drawn to Isaiah 41:10 which reads, “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will hold on to you with my righteous right hand.”
What’s so very interesting about this instruction being here in the chronology of Isaiah, is God has just given the prophecy of Babylon’s coming invasion of Israel. Which is weird because that sounds like a pretty fear-inducing event. For each of us, at different points in our lives, we will face hardship. God’s instructions to us are the same now as they were then, “Do not fear”. We can live with out fear even in the face of difficulty and trials. This is the promise of God, in times of fear, he is and he will.
Isaiah 41:10 begins with this instruction to not fear and is quickly followed by God’s reasoning for us not fearing. God is with us and he is God! What better reason for confidence can we have that not only we are not alone but it is God himself who is with us?
In Exodus 3 we read the story of Moses who encounters God in the desert and is told to go the Pharaoh and the people of Israel and lead them out of bondage. When Moses asks how he’s going to do this God instructs him with these same truths, that he is with Moses (Ex 3:12) and that he is God (Ex 3:14). When we face hardship and we feel overwhelmed by fear, we can have faith and overcome because God is with us and he is God!
God doesn’t just promise us his awesome presence, he tells us that he will do for us what we can not do for ourselves. He promises to give us strength. You may have heard before this statement, “God will never give you more than you can handle”, while this is well meaning I disagree with it wholeheartedly. God will certainly allow things that are too much for us to handle because it is in those moments that we truly learn to lean on his strength.
God also promises to help us in our moments of hardship. Imagine if you were in a tag team wrestling match and your partner was WWE Undisputed Universal Champion Cody Rhodes. For the match you start in the ring and your opponent is whooping you, you’re close enough to the ropes to tag Cody in but you decide to fix it yourself because you don’t want to bother him. Think about our moments of fear when we have God almighty in our corner. Not only is he with us but he wants to help us. Yet, how often do we choose to lean on our own selves instead of tagging him in.
God’s final promise is to hold us up, to keep us in his grip. When the world is turned upside down we can have confidence that God has us right where he wants us! We don’t have to be afraid because we are firmly in his grasp!
