“Mom, do you promise to be with me forever?”
Knowing that I won’t be around “forever,” I try to reassure Grace, our 7-year-old, that while her dad and I will always do our very best to be there for her, her real security should rest in the only everlasting One; in Immanuel.
“Behold, the Virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which translated means, God with us.” (Matthew 1:23)
But do we REALLY believe that He is with us? It’s easy to believe when things go well, when a loved one we pray for gets healed, when we do well at school, when we have great Christian friends and family. But what about when we pray for loved ones and they die? When things are rough at home and no one seems to care? When we’re struggling at school or struggling to pay the bills? Where is God? How is He with us?
Let’s rewind back 2016 years. Jesus was born in a manger because there was no room for Him elsewhere. Then His parents had to take Him and flee because Herod wanted to kill Him. Jesus became a refugee. When He began his ministry, He was called Beelzebul (Matthew 12:24) and a friend of sinners. He was betrayed by one of his closest friends, denied by another, then brutally beaten, spat upon and finally crucified by the very people for whom He came to die. Why did He endure all that?
To be with us forever. To be Immanuel. He easily could have been born a king in a palace if he wanted to. But the King of Kings chose to come in the toughest of circumstances to experience our pain (Hebrews 4:15). As Dr. Ravi Zacharias beautifully put it, “God does not conquer in spite of the dark mystery of evil. He conquers through evil, suffering and pain… We might be looking for an answer, but what we need is a person: Jesus Christ.” Immanuel.
May I invite you to look upon Him who promises to never leave you? Not as a limited promise from a parent to a child, but as a promise from the only One who speaks things into existence. He never changes and never lies. He is sovereign, omnipotent and omnipresent.
He is Immanuel.
– Nancy Aziz
PBA Class of 2002
Now with Focus on the Family ME in Cairo, Egypt