When it gets hard, we run to our Refuge. When our enemies literally surround us, we are protected by the Rock. When it seems like there is no safe place, His arms are open to receive us.

Everyone needs someone. God is faithful to place us, purposefully, to be that one for someone. His compassion and love for us provisionally assures us that we, too, have someone.

Quotes abound about loving the people who are difficult, mean, and make our blood boil just at their name’s mention. People who have hurt us and the people we love, unapologetically, and repeatedly, are difficult to be nice to. God calls us not just to be nice, but to love them. To pray for them to be blessed. 

The ancient words of the prophet Isaiah still encourage us today, reminding us of who God is, and Whose we are. Trust in God, who is unchanging, helps us build confident faith in His will for our lives.

Consistent faith requires us to keep getting up each day and do our best to walk out God’s will for our lives. He doesn’t make it a tricky process. He’s not far off, but close. He communicates with us through prayer and His Word, and the surrounding landscape of His creation.

The Bible is a structured memory, reminding us of the story of our salvation, and meeting us in our everyday lives with the wisdom we need to navigate each one. The memories in the Bible become marked with our own memories, some tear-stained and others sweet.

We can wholeheartedly believe and trust for the healings we hope for and problems we seek solutions for. God knows what we need, and He is faithful. Peace-filled, positive thinking = thinking about God!

Change is hard. Change is good. It’s both, sometimes simultaneously. Change can make us feel like giving up. Change can launch celebration into our lives. The only thing we can predict about change in our lives is the coming of it. The best way to process change of any kind, is through the One who never changes.

A wise pastor once told me we will be surprised by who we see when we get to Heaven. Comparison and competition plague us. Jealousy and insecurity have their way in our lives too often.

The evidence of God’s work in our lives is the way we live them, in pursuit of Him. Telling of Him, not only with our mouths delivering Gospel truth, but our lives putting it on full display, bringing glory to Him with everyone who comes to know Him through us.

“I am the LORD;
there is no other God.

I have equipped you for battle,
though you don’t even know me,
so all the world from east to west
will know there is no other God.

I am the LORD, and there is no other.
I create the light and make the darkness.

I send good times and bad times.
I, the LORD, am the one who does these things” 

(Isaiah 45:5-7).

Courage back-builds as we spend time soaked in the Truth of God’s Word. Understanding who God is and who we are as His children allows us to realize our need for Him. When we don’t know what’s going to happen, God is already there. He is all-knowing, everywhere, all of the time.

There is no other God, Isaiah repeated three times in today’s key verses. Any time a word or phrase is repeated in Scripture, we can assume it’s of heightened importance. There is no other God. He alone is mighty to save. He gives us what we need to live the lives He’s put us on earth to live, before we even know who He is. We have a never-ending supply of courage available to us, through Christ Jesus. His Holy Spirit lives in us, activating a supernatural bravery in each of us who call Him our Savior. The One True God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is no other.

Our hope is in Him. Our hope comes from Him, as does the courage and bravery we need to wait patiently on Him. 

Photo credit: ©Getty Images/vchal

We can speak the truth in love and still be very clear about what the Gospel is and is not. Those who follow Christ Jesus are different. They are recognizable by the good they do, not to earn, but because of what we have received. There is no other way to God but through Christ Jesus.

If we are searching for deep faith, our answer lies on the fringes of belonging. In serving them, we fill our own souls with the depth of what it means to follow Christ. To know Him is to pursue the people who do not belong. The rejected, the uncool, the unpopular, and the ones who bother and annoy everyone around them.