Kim Gentes

Our tattered world has little to offer a weary soul. Our own lives have little strength or ability to overcome what we face. Is there hope? Are there answers anywhere?

From the wisdom and promise of the Old Testament scriptures we find God speaking to us of his response to our need.  Through the mouths of two of the greatest prophets in history, God declares an amazing truth:

The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him. (Exodus 15:2)

Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. (Isaiah 12:2)

But what does this mean? What was God trying to say through Moses and Isaiah's declarations (indeed celebration)?

Both Moses and Isaiah had a viewpoint that declared that God wasn't just going to answer our prayers and needs by giving a gift or provisioning a supply. Instead, these men of God declared that our need for strength, for a vision/call/vocation (our song) and for rescue (salvation) were to be answered not by gifts, but by the person of God himself. 

The Lord is our strength. The Lord is our song. The Lord is our salvation.

What does this really mean?

The Lord himself is our power to live fully.
The Lord himself is our vision and our life's call.
The Lord himself is our rescue in troubled circumstances.

Though we are etched from God's image, we are desperate beings having been tarnished in the wake of brokenness and sin. Without God, we find that we are stuck in powerless lives, lost in a visionless future, and alone in our times of trouble.

Many of us understand that Jesus has come to bring the Kingdom of God and deliver us from our sin and its affects. But we can sometimes get the mistaken impression that his deliverance will come in gifts, dispatched like heavenly parcels from a distant God. Perhaps, like me, you used to picture prayers rolling in to heaven like letters to God. God finds a prayer that seems worthy, calls an angel to attention and dispatches a gift of response to the prayer. He continues on his throne, mercifully releasing various parcels of his mercy to our aid.  If you've had this image (or some variation of it), you have been (like me) mistaken.

From the scriptures above, Moses and Isaiah pointed not to actions or gifts from God. No, they saw God as the gift- the One who would come to rescue humanity from its darkness, not just for the Jews, but for all people. Jesus has come. Through his death and resurrection, He now stands as the One in our midst through the Holy Spirit.

Do you need strength? God hasn't decided to just send you a gift of strength, He has come personally to be with you. He is your strength, with you now.

Do you need vision, hope and clarity for your life's call? God won't send you wisdom like a message in a bottle. No. He is your song, your vision, your hope. Right with you. Right now.

Do you need rescue in troubled circumstances? God himself is your salvation, your rescue, your refuge in this time of trial.

In these uncertain times, may we be aware of his Holy Spirit's presence, with us right now. He didn't send an impersonal answer to your prayer. He came himself to be that answer. He is with you. Now.

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."
(Hebrews 13:5)

Walking with you,
Kim Gentes