A Promise to Hold Onto

It’s the middle of January and maybe the freshness of the New Year has worn off for you already. Maybe you’re struggling with the fact that January has you running to catch up. Maybe you’ve carried most of last year’s hurts and worries with you into this year. Or maybe 2018 still feels sparkly and new, full of hope and promise.

 

Whatever the case may be, praise God that His mercies are new every morning, and He makes these promises to us, not dependent on how we feel about waking up on that morning.

 

There’s a quippy saying, that goes, “It’s all going to be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” It’s cute and funny, but as believers in Jesus, we get a much stronger promise to hold onto. We have such ready access to Christ: we have His word and Spirit, and He’s promised never to leave us or forsake us. “I am with you always,” He promises in Matthew 28, “even to the end of the age.”

 

In Isaiah 40:25-31, after God speaks comfort over His people, He says these words:

“To whom then will you compare me,
that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name;
by the greatness of his might
and because he is strong in power,
not one is missing.

 Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my right is disregarded by my God”?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.”

This is the word of our Lord. May you walk in this promise and hope in Him in 2018 and always.

 

This first appeared as a devotional on the Women Encouraged podcast which you can listen to on iTunes. The shownotes and information are available on the Women Encouraged website here.