Food for ThoughtIsaiah 43:2 Facing Difficult Times
Food for Thought
An all-creatures.org Guide to Kingdom Living

By Marni Montanez

Isaiah 43:2  (NLT)

2. When you go through deep waters,
I will be with you.
When you go through rivers of difficulty,
you will not drown. 
When you walk through the fire of oppression,
you will not be burned up;
the flames will not consume you.

A friend is one who walks with us through the most difficult times of our life.  They cry with us, talk with us, encourage and support us.  This is what God is promising to do for us. God promises that whatever it is we go through, He will be right there, present and urging us to continue.  

No matter what depth of pain or sorrow, God is more than able and willing to come into our pain and sorrow and nurture our souls.  Even when we are overwhelmed we can rest assured that God has not forsaken us.  

Psalm 69:1 American Standard Version 

1. Save me, O God;
For the waters are come in unto my soul.

We all go through emotional distress; an unforeseen tragedy arises and we are taken off balance. God uses the word waters or rivers as visual insight into the troubles we face. Water has been a symbol of emotions or the Holy Spirit.  

God is very careful to say 'when" you pass through the waters, because it is inevitable that we will pass through waters of pain, trouble and suffering.  The hardships we face on our spiritual journey are necessary.  These hardships remove the barbed wire that prevent us from becoming closer to God; they soften our heart and humble us.  They purge us of things we don’t need in our life and in our soul. Even though we will experience hardship, it is important to note that God promises to go through these times with us;  He will not abandon us. 

Hebrews 13:5 New International Version 

5. Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.

He also promises that we will be victorious after going through the process.  We will come out the other side with victory and strength. It is then that we experience a new normal. This normal is full of clarity and confidence and brings us another step closer to our destiny.

Challenge: Choose to place your hand in God's hands and allow Him to take you where you need to go in the spirit and emotionally so that you can be free.  It’s not easy to allow oneself to experience and feel the pain and fear we may have buried and needs to come out. This is the way we get free from emotional restraints and lets us move in our anointing with greater power.

God bless

Marni

Go on to: Isaiah 43:19 - God Brings Change
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lamb-rightThe purpose of this series is to encourage people to live as loving, compassionate, and peacemaking children of God: Jesus tells us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:10) God tells us through Micah (6:8), "He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God." And we know from Revelation 21:4 that there will be no more mourning, or crying, or pain, or death. Thus, Christian living requires us to set the standards of these conditions here on earth for our fellow human beings, and for the other animals, as a witness to the rest of the world. To do otherwise is not Christian.