Right There!

“In my going, you are there; in my battles, you are there; in my deliverance, you are there!” -From devotions by Craig Smith

I was doing some catching up on emails and ran across this sentence in a devotion I'd missed a couple weeks back. I don't know if I needed to read it when it was posted, but I know I needed it today. What's better is that I know God knew I'd need it today.

Sometimes, I need desperately to be reminded that God is God. He does not change; he does not get offended by our mistakes because he sent his son to pay for all. He does not leave us when we are less than appealing. He doesn't abandon us if we forget to thank or praise him. At that moment when I forget he's there, he does not turn his head away or walk out of the room for a moment to adjust or to allow me a moment of private error. In my daily walk he is there. Because he sent his Spirit to live in me, he is always there.

Sometimes I approach him as though he will be surprised by what I have to say. I pray as though he has not seen or heard my failure, my dilemma, my desire. I approach him as though he is the aggressive prosecutor and not as though Father and Son and Spirit are One. Satan is the accuser of the brethren, the saints, the children of God, but Jesus is our advocate. He never has to decide whether he should or will take my case and he never approaches it half-hearted as though he doesn't really believe in me. I have an adversary, an enemy, one who stands against me. It is not the Father, Son or Spirit: the One. In my battles, God wields the sword; he steps to my defense; he knows the right argument; he protects my front and back and says “Go this way, Donna.”

God is my strength; he is my song; he designed, finished and provided my deliverance. Before I was born, he was my deliverance, before I called, he was my salvation, before I was set free, he was my song. He is eternal, the only one like him, the only one who can save, deliver, redeem, pull me out of the hole I created and set me beside his Son as a joint heir. He is there. If I wander, he finds me even when I'm not looking to be found. I am his daughter, his beloved by right of the sacrificed Son.

In my going, in my battles, in my deliverance, My God -Father, Son and Spirit is there!