👐 Isaiah 43:2 | A Simple Way to Place Your Trust in God

👐 support our work // ⚡️ sponsorship // 📧 subscribe

📧 In today’s email…

• 🌊 Jesus > the Sea

• 👐 A practical way to trust God with the storms of life

• 🔦 Community spotlight!

 🧠 Memorize

_{see if you know what words go in the blanks}

When ___ ____ _______ ___ ______, I ____ __ ____ ___;

and _______ ___ ______, ____ shall not _________ ___;

when ___ ____ _______ fire ___ _____ ___ be burned,

___ ___ flame _____ ___ consume you.

Isaiah 43:2

Lord over the Sea 🌊 

On Tuesday, we touched on an example of God showing himself to be Lord over the sea (the parting of the Red Sea).

And yesterday, we looked at the example from Daniel of God protecting His people from the fire (Daniel 3).

Today, let’s look at one of Jesus’ notable interactions with the sea to help us continue to meditate on the beautiful promise we have in Isaiah 43:2:

As we learned on Monday, the sea sometimes carried a negative connotation for the Israelite people.

The Hebrew word for water, mayim, comes from the root mem, which can mean "chaos."

And so the sea sometimes symbolized danger and chaos (consider the destruction of the flood).

We see this in a literal way in Jesus ministry in the gospel of Mark when Jesus and his disciples are in the Sea of Galilee..

It’s easy to read this and think it means:

“Yes! God is going to calm all the storms of my life!”

And in one sense, God will calm all of the storms - but that is only guaranteed to happen in the end when He makes everything new.

But the hard reality is that we are not promised the calming of our temporary storms in this life.

In fact, Jesus promises us that we will have troubles:

The central truths of this passage in Mark are that:

1. Jesus is God. He is Lord over the entire cosmos, including the Seas.

2. God is worthy of our trust. This is ultimately what he wants from us. This is what was severed and lost in the Fall when Adam and Even chose not to trust God’s good intention for them.

And this is at the heart of Isaiah 43.

Consider these phrases spoken by God all found within the first few verses of Isaiah 43:

• Fear not, for I have redeemed you

• You are mine

• I will be with you

• For I am the Lord Your God…your Savior

It’s as if God is pleading with the Israelites (and now with us):

“Trust me. I want you to trust me.”

💡 Read Isaiah 43 again today through the lens of trusting God.

Trusting God with Your Storms 🪨 

Let’s return to Jesus’ words in John 16.

You will have troubles.

But you can still have peace - in Jesus.

And we will only experience that peace if we actively place our trust in God.

Below, I walk through a short visualization process that has really helped me entrust the burdens and storms of my life to God in various seasons.

It takes practice to quiet your mind, but it’s well worth it.

Visualization: Placing Trust in God 👐 

1. Set aside 5 minutes where you can sit alone in silence.

2. Close your eyes and visualize yourself on a path walking with Jesus. You have a backpack on and it is heavy. It’s full of big rocks that represent the various storms of life you’re carrying and worrying about right now. Bring those to mind.

3. Imagine Jesus inviting you to stop along the path with Him. Picture Him asking you, one-by-one, to take each rock out of your backpack and hand it to Him. What do you need to surrender?

4. Picture Jesus taking each rock and placing it inside of His backpack.

5. Once you’ve handed Jesus all of your rocks, notice that your backpack now feels as light as a feather. Jesus took them all.

6. Look Jesus in the eyes and say, “Thank you, Lord. I trust you with those. I surrender them to you.”

7. Exhale deeply and feel your shoulders relax. Imagine Jesus smiling and putting his hand on your shoulder.

8. To conclude, picture yourself continuing to walk on that path with Jesus.

Take that image with you into the rest of your day.

🗣️ Bonus: Share what that visualization was like for you with a friend, and incorporate this into your rhythm of quiet time with God.

Community spotlight 🔦 

This is a new section where you can expect to see prayer requests, shout outs, amazing things people in this community are up to, sponsorships to help us continue to operate, and examples of how God is moving in the lives of other believers in this community.

Shout-outs 📣

• Shout out to Jason and Audra for sharing Malachi Daily with 2 friends!

• HUGE thank you’s to Kacey, Don and one anonymous subscriber for choosing to pay-it-forward so we can help more people memorize and learn about God’s Word!

Feedback ❤️ 

“Biblically sound, teaching hebrew/greek words from the passage, pointing us toward seeking God - so simple, but so good! Thank you for this!”

Torrie T

“I am a pastor and therapist, and I want to congratulate you on this lesson with so much meat and richness! I receive many Christian devotionals, but this is excellent. I will be supporting you and passing this on to others. Thank you!”

B.G.

What a blessing this is! I’m actually memorizing scripture! Thank you!

C.J.

This community has grown to more than 11,000+ subscribers very quickly - we have so much planned to continue serving you in 2024!

Thank you so much to everyone paying-it-forward to help us keep operating! 🙏

Answer key ✅ 

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.

Isaiah 43:2