Fear No Fear

“Jacob awoke out of his sleep, and he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it” (Genesis 28:16, MEV). God promised that He would NEVER leave us or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:8; Hebrews 13:5). That means God is ALWAYS with us. God NEVER abandons us, deserts us, or gives us up completely. That means that no matter how foolish we are, no matter how much we let ourselves get distracted, no matter how ‘I ain’t gonna’ we get, He doesn’t give up on us. He is still there. Right there. We might not be facing His direction, but He hasn’t stepped away. He hasn’t stopped loving us. He hasn’t stopped calling out correction. He hasn’t stopped speaking truth to us. Our attention may waver. His does not. That also means that we might not turn away or rebel, but we might stop noticing the forest for the trees. We might be ticking along trying to live out a relationship with God on one level while totally missing what is happening on another. We might get so ‘used’ to being blessed at a given level, that we don’t notice how much we really are being blessed. We might get so ‘used’ to a level of interaction with the Lord, that we don’t notice how close we really have become. It is a WONDERFUL feeling to see a news report about the economy or to go to church and listen to a message about an aspect of the life of a believer and realize we are already living it. That we are WAY more blessed than we had picked up on. We can find ourselves thanking God for His goodness and provision and presence – and then kinda really see it for what it is and be shocked. When the goodness of God becomes commonplace it’s great. But when the goodness of God surprises us with its consistency and constancy, it’s even greater! What a JOY and PRIVILEGE it is to realize that while we’ve been dealing with A and working on getting B into our hearts, God was always there doing and giving us C through Z. What a GOOD God! What a LOVING Father! What an AWESOME groom!