When you know whose you are, who you are, and carefully follow His directives, you will find yourself overcoming obstacles and stepping past fear with ease.
Video Transcript
Hi there and welcome back to Daily Bible Promises with a Twist. And as always we read one verse from the New International Version this is a part of Isaiah 41 verse 10 from the New International Version. “Do not fear for I am with you, do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you.”
So, let’s put that first into context and we’re going to be reading from the new American Standard Bible. And I am going to be reading from verse 8 to verse 10. “But you Israel, my servant Jacob, whom I have chosen, descendant of Abraham my friend. You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth and called from its remotest parts, and said to you, ‘You are my servant, I have chosen you and not rejected you. Do not fear for I am with you. Do not anxiously look about you for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
I asked the Lord what He wanted to speak to me first about in this verse and then what He would like me to share with you. I remembered when I was around eleven years old and I was taking voice lessons. My parents only had one car, and as my dad worked shift work, he could not drive me to and from my voice lessons. So, I had to take public transportation.
For about the first month that I was taking voice lessons, my mother assigned my eldest brother or to accompany me and to show me the ropes and show me how to take the bus, where to transfer, and along the way, give me a few street smarts. Within a couple of weeks, I felt totally comfortable and I thought it was a grand adventure. Well, there came the day that my older brother was released from his duties and I was on my own.
Now before you get on my mother’s case, this was a totally different time; where neighbors watched out for each other’s kids. Everybody on my block knew who I was, who I belonged to, and where I should be at any given time. Even on the bus, I was well taken care of by people who watched out for me and any other stray children that might be on the bus. There were some things that both my mother and my older brother drilled into me. Number one: make sure that when you get on the bus you tell the driver where you’re going, ask for two tickets and a transfer, and then sit by the bus driver. And if you start to feel nervous, don’t look around but distract yourself by reading your book, looking over your music, or whatever. My mother also reminded me that my singing teacher was expecting me and that they were excited that I would be coming.
Every Saturday morning, I’d march down the street and I’d sing my little mantra ‘two tickets and a transfer, please.’ I’m sure that I sang that to the bus driver rather than spoke it because I rehearsed it so many times in my mind week after week. I would then say to the bus driver, This is where I am going.” I would sit right by the bus driver. The bus driver, if anybody was sitting where he wanted me to sit, he politely asked them to move and we’d be on our way. I would get off at the right spot that I needed to transfer to another bus. It was only maybe a two or three minute wait and I always stood near an adult woman as my street-smart brother taught me.
So where am I going with this? I believe God repeats himself again and again in the Bible because He wants those truths and those instructions that He’s giving us to become so ingrained in our psyche that they are like spiritual muscle memory. And those verses and commands and excitations will bubble up to the surface right where we need them in the same way that my mother reminded me who I belonged to and where I was going.
God does that with Israel. He reminds them that they are His, that He has called them, and He repeats himself numerous times just in this chapter saying exactly the same thing. “Do not fear; do not anxiously look about you. For I am your God and I will surely strengthen you.”
If you can relate to this at all, perhaps it’s time to build some spiritual muscle memory of your own so when you are faced with a situation that you’re not sure what to do, you will have an immediate resource of Bible passages and truths that will bubble up to the surface and guide you through whatever obstacle that might be in front of you.
So, remember this. Do not be afraid, do not look anxiously around you, keep your eyes focused on Christ, and remember He is your strength and he is always with you.
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©2018 Katherine Walden
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