The following meditation was written by Rev. Dr. Michael B. Brown, Pastor of Blowing Rock Methodist Church in North Carolina.
“Don’t fear, I am with you.” Isaiah 43:5a (Common English Bible)
A line frequently attributed to Victor Hugo is: “Go to sleep in peace. God is awake.”[1] If you’re reading this meditation before turning out the lights, then those words (whoever wrote them) should be comforting to consider. If you are reading this, instead, at the breakfast table before beginning your day, the words are just as comforting with only a minimal amount of editorial revision: “Live your day in peace. God is awake.” Present. With you, moment by moment, step by step.
The second section of the Book of Isaiah (referred to as Deutero-Isaiah) was written near the end of the Babylonian captivity. Some people from Israel had been enslaved by Babylon and forced to live there for seventy years. They feared, of course, that they would never again see their holy land and home, that they would never again resume life as they had once known it, that they would never again breathe the sweet aroma of freedom. Isaiah 43 speaks of their liberation (their new exodus) that was soon to come. It’s all part of an extended passage beginning in the 40th chapter with the words “Comfort, comfort my people!”(Isa 40:1). They will be led back home, said Isaiah, safely through rivers that ordinarily would have pulled them under and over dry land that feels like fire beneath their feet but does not burn them. “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you . . . Don’t fear, I am with you.” (Isa 43:2, 5a)
Feeling caught in life’s deep waters and wondering if we will be dragged under is an emotion all of us, from time to time, experience. On those occasions, fear is a natural and predictable response. Our faith does not tell us those moments won’t come. It simply tells us that the waters will not pull us under because there is someone with us in the deep end of the pool, holding us up.
My dad was always my hero. I learned more lessons from him than there is time or space to recount here. Most of those lessons live on with me day by day. In my relationships, in my work, in my faith, he is there. When he was rushed to a local emergency room, I hurried to get there to be with him. Sadly, I arrived too late. He had died en route. As I stood outside a treatment room where his body lay, about to go in and say a goodbye I wasn’t prepared to say, a male nurse wrapped an arm around my shoulder and spoke: “It’s okay. Go on. Both of your fathers are in there.” Both fathers—the dad who had left for another place, but also the one Jesus called “Father,” the one who had made a promise to the Israelites and also to me and you and all who need to hear it, a promise to remain close in all our difficult times and places, in all our Babylon moments: “Don’t fear, I am with you.”
What current struggle are you going through, something that you don’t feel prepared or able to adequately deal with? What Babylon has you momentarily captured? Whatever it is, God whispers to you about presence. About nearness. About being beside you on the journey. The Hebrews were not yet back to where they wanted to be. What lay before them seemed long and intimidating. But Isaiah assured them that God would get them through the deep waters and over the hot deserts, at last successfully reaching their desired destination. That is a promise made to us, as well. And God never goes back on a promise. “Don’t fear, I am with you.”
Joy,
[1] Attributed to Victor Hugo, often quoted in English as: “Go to sleep in peace. God is awake.” The fuller version – “Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones … go to sleep in peace. God is awake” – circulates widely, though a definitive primary source is difficult to verify.
Nurture Faith with Dr. Doug Hood 