Tuesday Reflection September 07, 2021

God Knows our Struggles and Delivers Us.

I recently saw my daughters off to college and it was an experience rife with emotions all around. For the first time they were leaving home for a prolonged period and would be almost four hours away from us. Many questions began to run through my mind. What if there’s an emergency? What is they need something right away? What if they get sick or hurt? All my foreboding was based on one thing and one thing only. They would be away from me. Then I began to realize that being away from daddy and mummy did not leave us nor them powerless or vulnerable for there is one who would be with them through it all. God has promised never to leave nor forsake us. Today’s watchword serves as a reminder of the reassuring and comforting thoughts I had. The Lord your God has known your wanderings through this great wilderness. Deuteronomy 2: 7.

The children of Israel travelled for forty years through the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land. As they are about to enter the land of promise, the Lord spoke to them through Moses as he recalled all that they went through to get to that point. He reminded them of the hardships they faced and the ways in which God delivered them. As the text states, God had been with them every step of the way. He knew everything they had experienced, and He had been their deliverer. The entire verse 7 says: “For the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand. He knows your trudging through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.” ’This was God’s way of letting Israel know that He who had been faithful to them through the wilderness would be sufficient to keep them in their new location. They only needed to be true to the Covenant. In the same way, I also was reminded that God is able keep our children once we commit them to His care. What a comforting feeling it was to place my children, all the youngsters of our congregation, and others that I am aware of, into God’s keeping knowing they would be ok as they move away from home for the first time, or as they returned to college, to continue their education. God’s protection of them will be greater than anything we could ever do, for God who know their struggles is also God who delivers. Hear God’s word to us from Isaiah 49:25 (Amp) “For I will contend with him who contends with you, And I will save (defend, preserve, rescue, deliver) your children.”

If you are a parent who is struggling to release your child, to allow them to move to the next stage of their life journey, I encourage you to release them into God’s care. Let God lead that child forward. Let God surround him or her with his protective presence. Let God inspire and support your child as only He can. May today’s text also serve as a reminder to us all that God is aware of what we have experienced and of what troubles us in the here and now. He seeks to assure us that He who has been faithful to us through all the challenges we have faced in the wilderness of our personal life journeys, will be faithful enough for what we anticipate even as we look ahead. Let us rest assured that our Lord knows what we have been through, what we are going through and what we will go through, and He is able to take us safely to our journey’s completion. Let us continue to trust in our all-present and all-knowing God, for the God who knows our struggles is the same God who delivers. Amen.