Fear Not, Because God is Here

Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you.

(Isaiah 43:5 ESV)

In Lemmon, South Dakota, is a jewelry manufacturer. It is a well-run small-town operation that provides employment, local pride, and quality jewelry.

After we had lived in Lemmon for a while, we began to notice that jewelry from that factory could be found all over the country. Visiting a store in Colorado, we found a display of familiar pieces. In shops far from Lemmon, our town was represented.

But as grand as it was to see that jewelry spread out all over the country, the BEST thing about seeing all those examples was that Wheeler’s manufacturing was at home. The wideness of the business’s reach had its greatest value for us in the fact that we could see the building every day. Right over there.

It works the same way for me regarding Walmart and McDonald’s. I like knowing that those monstrous conglomerates are present in Mongolia, Madagascar, and Montevideo… because they are also present right here. While many might be impressed at the extent of the reach, I am moved by that great reach because of the connection HERE.

It is not the far away… it is the here.

Isaiah feels the same way about God. Isaiah knows that God is in the East and the West (and the next verses point out God’s activity in the North and the South.) God’s reach is limitless. He is in all those places, those distant locations, those far away locales. Amazing… hard to get our heads around… powerful.

Geography has shrunk. Our maps are bigger. Isaiah shows the breadth of God’s presence by saying “East” and “West.” Not as particularly places, perhaps, but as symbolic for far, far, far away. But today we might refer to planets… stars… galaxies… maybe even dimensions. God is everywhere!

But Isaiah tells us to fear not, because God is most importantly HERE. God is with us. God is with you.

In this verse, the amazingly comforting thing about the God whose reach is extravagant, spectacular, and fantastic is that He is HERE.

Fear not, because God is here.