3/5/2023 0 Comments Fear not for i am with you“Fear not” is the first command at the beginning of the verse. There are two commands in the verse not to fear and five pillars of fearlessness. Let’s look at the verse, Isaiah 41:10, and then see how the preceding verses intensify the point of the verse. When I sought for a concluding text for this series on courage and fearlessness and risk-taking, it had to be the one that God has used in my life more than any other to help me through times of stress and fear. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.’” It served me well and it will serve you well. So last Wednesday evening just before Benjamin left for boot camp in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, we all sat down in the living room and I said, “There is a special verse I want to send with you, because my father sent it with me. And I rejoice that I can do for them what my father did for me. Passing the Promise to My Own SonsĪnd now I am a father with sons. Ich staerke dich, ich helfe dir, ich stuetze dich mit der rechten hand meiner Gerechtigkeit.” And seeing God again and again and again come through for me. I can remember riding my old-fashioned, secondhand, balloon-tire bike on the bumpy, cobblestone back streets of Munich along the Isar River on the way to a class where I might have to use my German in front of the other students, and saying over and over again to myself, “ Fuerchte dich nicht, denn ich bin mit dir shau dich nicht aenchstlich um, ich bin ja dein Gott. In fact it became so instinctive to say it, that today when my mind is neutral the spinning of the gears is in Isaiah 41:10. Oh how I pray that I will have the faith and confidence he has in our Lord for trying times.įor three years in Germany, Isaiah 41:10 was on my lips and in my heart during anxious times more than any other verse. I love him for following through in that call. I think every time I am thrown into a new situation where I may be afraid or alone my mind turns to the kind of life Daddy has been called to live for almost 30 years. Noël and I read these together before going to bed tonight. He gave me three passages to read: Isaiah 41:10 Isaiah 50:7 2 Timothy 4:1–5. I came closer to crying there than when I left Mother and MaMohn at Pan Am. I felt so frustrated to make our goodbye appropriate. From Radio City we called Daddy long distance to say goodbye. Then we went into Manhattan to see the town, and decided it would be preferable to sit in Radio City Music Hall than fight that crazy traffic and heat. At about 2pm we found Cargo Hanger 67 at Kennedy Airport where we unloaded our 400 pounds of extra luggage and paid $253 to have it shipped on our own flight. We picked up mother and MaMohn and headed for New York. “If God commands us to do something, there are good reasons to do it.” To give a sense of realism here, let me read from my journal entry two days later. My father couldn’t be there to see us off because he was doing the work of an evangelist in another state. Now with that sense of desire to serve the church and that sense of weakness and imperfection I was in New York, fifteen days later, ready to leave for Munich for three years. I am a long way off from holiness realized. My how imperfect and weak I feel at home because I am not as loving as I ought to be. I want now to be about my studies in preparation, and I thank God for these times at home to see some needs - in the church and in myself. I want to be a channel of life for her and receive life through her. I want to teach in her and be taught in her. My desire is to throw myself into the church and be employed by the Lord to do what he would in this day and through me. God had turned my life around in seminary so that I was eager for studies not for their own sake but for Christ and his church. I was twenty-five years old, had just graduated from Fuller Seminary the month before. We believed God opened the door for us to go study at the University of Munich. On July 27, 1971, Noël and I boarded a 707 to fly from New York to Munich, Germany. But since it’s Father’s Day, I will tell you again, as a kind of tribute to my father - and my heavenly Father. I bring this series on courage to a close with the text that has served to relieve my fears more often than any other text in the Bible - namely, Isaiah 41:10.
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