We Are Not Alone

God With Us

A friend was sharing her concept of God with me. To this friend, God was an absentee landlord, a force who created the universe but took a hands off approach to his creation.

I told her that didn’t work for me. I needed a God who cared, who was personal and involved with His creation.

For a while the Israelites also perceived God as an absentee landlord. They were in captivity in Babylon because of their sin and rebellion, their temple destroyed years before. Based on their ancestors’ experiences in the wilderness, they thought God only resided in the temple (for their ancestors, the tabernacle). With the temple destroyed, they figured God had left them.

God, however, had not left them alone in captivity. Even in their darkest hour, in their despondency and despair, God revealed to his prophet, Ezekiel, that he was not only in the temple when it existed, but also there with them in captivity. He was their Jehovah Shammah (God is there).

Years before, when God led his people out of Israel, he promised Moses, his chosen leader, that his presence would go with them. Moses said to God, “If Thy presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here.” Moses knew the distinctive characteristic of God’s people was that their God was personally present with them.

God does not change. The New Testament begins with the promise of God with us.

The Apostle John writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” John 1:1,14.

God loved us enough to send his only son to live among us humans, teaching, healing, preaching, prophesying, and finally stepping in to die and take upon himself the penalty for our sins. And, then, when Jesus left earth to go to heaven, he sent his Spirit to live within us, empowering us to live the life he has called us to live.

Every moment of every day God is with us, even within us, strengthening us, guiding us, empowering us, equipping us, encouraging us. We are never alone. When we feel abandoned or isolated, when we feel helpless and without resources, when we feel no one sees us or cares, we need only remember our Jehovah Shammah. He is there.