We Remember Your Presence with Us

Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 31:1-8, Isaiah 41:8-10, Isaiah 43:2, John 14:16-18

I slipped away from my family and enjoyed a couple days cuddled with a warm blanket, watching clusters of snowy white birds dance on the lake as I prayed for direction. 

An idea popped in my head. “Prepare your house to sell.” 

Wait a second. Prepare my house to sell? Was that my thought or the Holy Spirit? We just bought our house three years ago.

I casually told my husband the thought when I returned home—and he surprisingly replied, “I think you’re right. I think the Lord wants us to move.” Confirmation slammed the door behind me. 

Two months later, however, with walls painted Anew Gray and closets purged—we still wait, trusting God is before us, even though we have no idea what that looks like.

Many times in Scripture, God teaches trustful waiting. Promise to Abraham for a child, wait. Promise to Joseph to rule over his brothers, wait. Promise for the Holy Spirit to come, gather and wait in Jerusalem. 

Are you waiting on the Lord? You’re not alone.

After forty years of wandering the wilderness, God finally told Moses it was time for Joshua to lead God’s people into the promised land—but the deed to the land would come through war. Would the people mistrust God again like the generation before them? Maybe that temptation is why twice Moses said God would be with them and not forsake them. He declared the Lord went before them (Deuteronomy 31:1–8). The same God who had been with this people through parted waters and wilderness wanderings would be with them now, too, as they faced an unsure transition. 

Unsure transitions sometimes fill us with anxiety too. What will happen? The haze on the precipice of unknowns seems to taunt us toward doubt in what God said. Like the tempter in the garden, we can almost hear the whisper, “Did God really say…” (Genesis 3:1). 

Yes. God really said He will be with us. He promised to never leave or forsake Israel (Deuteronomy 31:8), and He promised to be with us always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:20).

So, no matter what we face today—an unsure housing market or an unsure anything—we can place our confidence that God is with us through His Holy Spirit (John 14:16–18), and He is faithful to lead us in His plan as we seek Him (Proverbs 3:5–6).

What are you facing? You are not alone.

Written by Seana Scott