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Isaiah 43:1-7

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.
Isaiah 43:2

Reflect

A young hiker in Australia found himself in serious trouble last Saturday afternoon.

He had been climbing Mount Beerwah, part of the Glass House Mountains in Queensland, when he fell and injured his ankle. He was still high on the mountain, in steep terrain, and unable to make his way down on his own.

Emergency crews were called, and drones eventually helped rescuers pinpoint his location. But finding him was only the beginning of the problem.

Firefighters still had to climb the mountain and lower themselves down the rock face to reach him. By the time they did, darkness had made an immediate helicopter rescue too dangerous. The young man wasn’t going anywhere until morning.

Neither were the firefighters.

They gave him first aid, food and water and secured themselves on the cliff face beside him. Then they stayed there through the night.

Think about that for a moment.

They couldn’t fix his ankle. They couldn’t make the sun come up any sooner, and they couldn’t get him off the mountain before morning. But they could make sure he didn’t spend the night there alone. The next morning, a rescue helicopter finally arrived and lifted the hiker and his rescuers from the mountain.

Most of us like rescue stories that move quickly. Something goes wrong, somebody arrives, the problem is solved and everyone goes home. Life doesn’t always work that way.

Sometimes we find ourselves stuck on the side of a mountain, figuratively speaking, praying desperately for God to get us down. We ask Him to heal the illness, repair the marriage, provide the job, resolve the conflict, take away the grief or end the struggle. We want the helicopter to arrive now.

And sometimes God does exactly that. Circumstances change quickly and dramatically, and we can look back and clearly see His hand of deliverance. But sometimes night falls first. That doesn’t mean God hasn’t come.

Through Isaiah, God promised His people, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.”

Notice what He doesn’t promise. He doesn’t say there will never be deep water. He doesn’t promise that we will never face frightening circumstances, painful losses or long nights when we aren’t sure how we’re going to get off the mountain. He promises His presence.

David expressed the same confidence in Psalm 23 when he wrote, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” The comfort wasn’t that there would be no valley. The comfort was that David would not walk through it alone.

Sometimes God’s deliverance changes our circumstances. Sometimes, until the circumstances can change, His presence is the deliverance.

There is another side to the story, though.

Those firefighters weren’t able to complete the rescue that night, but they still had something important to offer. They could stay.

God sometimes gives us the same opportunity.

When someone we love is hurting, our instinct is often to fix the problem. We want to say the right thing, provide the right answer or somehow make the pain disappear. When we can’t, we can begin to feel helpless.

But perhaps God isn’t always asking us to solve the problem. Sometimes He may simply be asking us to stay.

That might mean sitting in a hospital room when there is nothing useful to say, answering the phone when someone needs to talk, listening without trying to correct everything, praying with someone who is frightened or simply continuing to show up when the problem hasn’t gone away. None of those things may change the circumstances immediately, but they can remind another person that they do not have to face those circumstances alone.

There is something profoundly Christlike about that.

Jesus did not love humanity from a safe distance. John tells us that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God entered our world, shared our humanity and stepped directly into our brokenness. And He has never stopped being the God who stays.

Whatever mountain we find ourselves on, whatever darkness settles around us and however long it takes for morning to come, His promise remains the same:

“I will be with you.”

Sometimes rescue means getting someone off the mountain. Sometimes love means staying there with them until morning comes.

Respond

Lord, thank You that You do not abandon me when life becomes difficult. Help me trust Your presence when I am still waiting for circumstances to change. And when someone around me is hurting, help me recognize when I am called not to fix the problem, but simply to stay with them. Amen.