Isaiah 35:4-7a - Say to those who have an anxious heart, "Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you." Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.

Isaiah the prophet is speaking to people who are afraid. The people of Judah are under threat from the surrounding nations, especially from Assyria, which has already destroyed their sister country of Israel. They know that they, too, could be wiped out at any moment.

It must have been terrible, living under a threat like that—and not for a day or a week, but for years on end. But then, we live under threats like that too, don't we? For some of us it's a threat to our health—cancer, stroke, heart disease, addiction. Some of us are in danger of losing our jobs or our homes. Some of us are afraid because we are losing people we love—to death, to divorce, to misunderstandings and conflicts we can't put right. And so we go to bed afraid and wake up worried, and where can we find help? How can we go on living like this?

Isaiah calls us to look to God for help. He hasn't forgotten us! He made us and chose us to be His own. Absolutely He knows what's going on in our lives, and He will come to save us. He is the one strong rock on which we stand when everything else is going to pieces. And so we cling to Him with all our might.

But how can we know that God will save us? How can we be sure?

We know because He has done it before. What else was it but a rescue mission, when Jesus came into our world to save us? God saw the state our world was in—that all of us, every human being, was suffering under the power of death and evil, without help and without hope in a broken world. He saw that we could not help ourselves. And so He became our Savior. He became a human being, our Rescuer, taking vengeance on the powers of evil and setting us free at the cost of His own life. Who else has a God like this, that lays down His own life for the people He made?

And then Jesus rose from the dead, never to die again, breaking the power of death over the whole human race. He promises to be with us always, and to come back again from heaven and raise us too on the Last Day—why? Because we belong to Him, every one of us who trusts in Him.

If the Lord loves us that much, absolutely He will help us now. He has not forgotten us or what we are facing. We can cry out to Him for help. He will be with us and carry us through. We are not alone.

WE PRAY: Lord, You know what I am facing. Come and help me now! Amen.

This Daily Devotion was written by Dr. Kari Vo.

Reflection Questions:

1. What are you afraid of now?

2. When have you seen God help you before?

3. How does Jesus' love and presence help you live through frightening times?

Today's Bible Readings: 2 Chronicles 21    Obadiah    2 Corinthians 8

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