knowing

“Now this is what the Lord says- the One who created you Jacob, and the One who formed you, Israel- ‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine.  I will be with you when you pass through the waters, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you.  You will not be scorched when you walk through the fire, and the flame will not burn you.’”   Isaiah 43:1-2  


God’s Word is one of the most valuable components to our growth in Christ.  Through it we know who God is, how He acts, and what His will is.  In it’s pages we read many precious promises for us and by it’s light we can rightly judge all other claims about life.  Still so often to us the Bible is God’s book and nothing more.  We read it, letting the words flow through our brain, accumulating facts, storing away the right words for some needed day, but never letting this life source touch our heart.  

I think that is part of why God allows trials.  To make His word vibrantly, intensely, real to us.  To make His power and promises real to us. To make Himself real to us.  There is something we acquire when we read that we call ‘believing’ but when it does not change the way we view the world we know that it has failed to penetrate our hearts.

Once this passage from Isaiah was not real to me.  I believed it with my head but I had shut my eyes to it’s personal meaning in my life.  I wanted to trust that the flame would not burn me but my faith was small and weak.  So what does God do with weak faith?  He sends it through the rivers and through the flame.  What we will not believe though we read it in His holy word He graciously forces us to experience in our life.

My river was a very frightening time at the beginning of this illness.  A time when I had to walk through the valley of the shadow so many ’what ifs’ and ’hows’ unanswered.  A chilling place.  When I was once on the other side of that valley I read this passage.  How many times had I read it before? but this time excitement and understanding flowed through me.  The light of  this passage shone on the previous week and I remembered my river and the lapping water, how it has risen higher and higher, so close to overwhelming me and yet somehow…somehow it never did.  And I saw, I knew, my trials had not flowed over me because my Heavenly Father had not let them.  He had been there all along, with me.  Giving me just the right grace just enough strength, forbidding the waters to rise any higher than I could bare.  Oh how precious my God became to me in that instant of knowing.  How calmly I could look forward into the black unknown that stretched before me having already tasted His faithful care of me.  

I never have to be afraid when I find myself passing through flame, or fear the rising waters again.  I am confident that whatever comes my way will never be too painful or sad for me to bear.  I know that those waters will never overwhelm me.  And oh how precious it is to know.