“Do not fear for I am with you.” This promise from Isaiah 41:10 is pronounced at bedsides and gravesides, in the face of personal trauma and global terror, and has offered comfort and assurance to millions. Here is a wonderful promise from God to be received, remembered and prayed into and over our souls.
Despite our stoic British stiff upper lips and our reluctance to admit it, fear stalks all of us. Fear is a natural human response to threat or danger.
There is plenty of it about.
As I write a friend is awaiting the results of scans to show the scope of cancer in his body and what that means for his future: fear.
As I write the world is on tenterhooks awaiting the latest pronouncement from the American president wondering what the consequences will be for global alliances and economies: fear.
As I write I think of the people of Iran fearing for themselves and their families as the government brutally and violently acts against its own people: fear.
Indeed there is much to concern us, much to fear.
Fear filled the environment Isaiah prophesied into. The Judean exiles in Babylon faced a new threat in the form of Cyrus the Great and his Persian army encircling Babylon threatening to overcome it. For the Judeans, already powerless captives, fear and foreboding must have gripped their hearts.
So here is a promise from heaven : “do not fear for I am with you”. This is not an offer of a “bridge over troubled water” but a companion through the storm. More than that, God promises the gift of his right hand to uphold us, imparting the strength and help we need when we need it.
And there is more…
Pull back a few verses and you will see it. Isaiah 41:2 says that the feared Cyrus and his global ambitions will be employed by God for his ultimate purposes. That doesn’t make Cyrus a saint but it does show that God is sovereign in history. Spoiler alert! Cyrus and his enlightened views on multiculturalism will, in fact, be the agent of the exile ending and God‘s peoples returning to their homeland.
In this we are reminded that even as the nations rise and kings conspire (Psalm 2:1,2) God’s hand firmly remains on history guiding it towards his eternal purposes. Global affairs do not finally sit in the hands of human ingenuity or the corridors of influence and power but in God’s character and purpose.
So even in the chaos and uncertainty we see around us may we know the assurance of God’s presence and providence, and energy to work and pray for his kingdom to come.
Do not fear!
Iain
No Fear!
