I recently studied one of those promises and said to myself, "I wonder if there are any promises like that for me?" So I started searching. I thought that through my search I would come upon biblical promises saying things like, "I promise Tara Elizabeth Wagner that I'm going to use her suffering to do x, y and z (all very specific things like lead a nation or rule over my brothers.) Unfortunately, the only mention of the word "Tara" in the Bible is relating to Abraham's pagan dad who worshiped the stars. Not exactly what I was looking for.
In my obsession with finding all these promises from God, I came upon a lesson that has completely altered how I approach the subject in its entirety. While God's promises are great....they aren't everything.
In fact, they pale in comparison to one thing. It says in Isaiah, that when the Christ was born they were to give him the name that means, "God with us."
He's been on the mountain. He'd been in the temple. Far away from sin. Now, God was coming to us...in the greatest pursuit of all time.
When Christ came to earth, we gained the ability to have God with us. The immensity of that statement is so vast, that I think I will spend the rest of my life trying to gain a glimpse of it's depth.
God is not up in the clouds wrecking havoc with the flick of his blood thirsty finger. He is right here in my midst. Just like the song says, "he walks with me, and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own." The world lay in such a state of desperation, until Christ came. So far from God. Then, with the ripping of the veil, our souls discovered their value. Our value was great enough for God to die so he could remain with us.
The promises of God are immense and encouraging. They quench our thirst when we are parched in the land of suffering. They give us hope that this will not last forever. But God is better than any of his promises. Darkness has been silenced. The head of the serpent has been crushed.
The greatest answer to my longing for a promise, is not a promise. It's God.
May the expectation of your birth cause me to rejoice in the Lord who is now "with me."
