Everyday Gospel: A Daily Devotional Connecting Scripture to All of LifeSample

True security is found not in people, places, and things, but in the faithful, loving, protecting, and providing presence of the Lord.

Moving my family was a scary prospect. There were days when the decision haunted me. Maybe this would be the most unwise choice for me and my family that I had ever made. Would I live to regret it? We had eleven wonderful ministry years in our little church in Scranton, Pennsylvania. We loved the people there. They weren’t a congregation; they were family. What we had been through together and what we had built with one another was precious. The bulk of this wonderful group of people lived within walking distance of our home. We really did share life together. But now we sensed God was leading us to a different place in ministry and a different kind of ministry. I was about to leave pastoral ministry and begin working at the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation and Westminster Theological Seminary. We were moving from a small, close-knit community to a very big city that we didn’t really know.

It felt like we were leaving something warm and precious and moving to something unknown and impersonal. We had been warned about the difficulties and dangers of the big city. Questions loomed in my mind. Fear began to grow in my heart. What comforted my heart again and again as the fear came were these words: “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5). We were leaving a comfortable place, but we were not leaving the one in whom our security was found.

Such was Jacob’s experience. God called him to leave Canaan and move to Egypt. For any Canaanite, that would have been a scary thing to do. Jacob’s mind would have been flooded with a thousand questions for himself and his family. He would have had many fears and concerns. So, in an act of covenant love, God came to Jacob and reminded him that his hope and security had never been in his situation or location. God had been Jacob’s security all along, no matter where he has been. God reminded Jacob of who he was and what he had been given as a child of God. “I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph’s hand shall close your eyes” (Gen. 46:3–4).

I love the emphatic and specific nature of God’s reassuring promise to Jacob: “I myself will go down with you to Egypt.” This is not a general, impersonal religious platitude. This is the Lord of lords making it clear that he himself will go with Jacob to Egypt, and with him will come his wisdom, love, provision, protection, and grace.

No matter where you are today, no matter what you’re facing, and no matter where God is calling you to go, if you are his child, he makes the same emphatic and specific promise to you. In his words I will go with you, you will find true hope and security.

For further study and encouragement: Isaiah 41:10–13