Not Forsaken

God has said,

“Never will I leave you;
    never will I forsake you.”

So we say with confidence,

“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
    What can mere mortals do to me?”

Hebrews 13:5b-6

Last week Chinese family members of missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 received a text message from the Malaysian government telling them that the plane went down in the Indian Ocean and that all were lost. This particularly blunt and impersonal message, which reportedly was also poorly translated into Chinese, left these people stunned and angry.

We sometimes get letters, phone calls, emails and yes, sometimes, text messages that bring news that is hard to hear. There has been a bad accident, cancer has been diagnosed, our job is being terminated, our medical insurance is cancelled, the bank has begun the foreclosure process, cancer has returned, we are going to be deported, custody of the kids is denied, the massive tornado did hit our neighborhood. Such things come like a punch in the gut. We are left stunned. In such cases, truth, no matter how kindly delivered, may seem brutally disorienting.

This is surely why God has given us his promises. When we are reeling on the deck of a storm-lashed ship, we have something to hold to that stops the panic and brings some hope back to the heart. “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

We will never be able to keep the gut punches from coming, but when we hold to God’s promise, slowly but surely, we can get to the place where we can say, “The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid.”