Emmanuel God With Us

It's been a long week. As I sit here I'm struggling to keep back tears. A friend and I are both struggling with weighty decisions about our futures. As we were struggling with these she pulled out her Bible and started to read this week's Bible Survey reading assignment. The Psalms she read touched me, pulling at me and reminding me as I make these decisions I am not alone and that God will help me. Below I've posted one of the most meaningful:

Psalm 139
 ¹ You have searched me, LORD,
   and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
   you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
   you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
   you, LORD, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
   and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
   too lofty for me to attain.
 ⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
   if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
   your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
   and the light become night around me,”
 

 
















¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
   the night will shine like the day,
   for darkness is as light to you.
 ¹³ For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
   when I was made in the secret place,
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
   How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
   they would outnumber the grains of sand—
   when I awake, I am still with you.
 ¹⁹ If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
   Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
²⁰ They speak of you with evil intent;
   your adversaries misuse your name.
²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD,
   and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
²² I have nothing but hatred for them;
   I count them my enemies.
²³ Search me, God, and know my heart;
   test me and know my anxious thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
   and lead me in the way everlasting.



In my Bible Survey class our last topic we covered on Thursday was the Tabernacle. It was the first time we saw our professor cry. He had warned us at the beginning of semester that he would cry in class sometimes, but we saw the evidence for ourselves last class. As he stood up front and warned us he was going to cry I was confused. What in the world was there to cry about in the Tabernacle? That was always the most boring part of Exodus, where God explains exactly how the Tabernacle was to be built.

However, as our professor began to speak I slowly got a picture of what was touching him so much.

One of his favorite things to talk about is God's "striptease". Yes, you read that correctly. My teacher insists that God is doing a striptease with the Bible. He is slowly revealing more and more of himself throughout it, until at last he reveals himself in full glory in his sacrifice with Jesus. It's an interesting picture and caused quite a few laughs in class at the time.

Anyhow, in class he began to explain how the Tabernacle was another place where God revealed a bit more of who he is to his people. He stood up in front of the class and asked "what happens after the Tabernacle is built?"

Someone raised their hand and said that the Israelites would wander through the desert for forty years, and that was the main reason it was a tent so that it was moveable.

Our teacher looked at us with tears in his eyes and nodded. He explained that it is notable because God wanted to dwell among them. In Leviticus 26: 11 it says: " I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you". The professor explained to us that it was in the Israelites most terrible time when God came to be with them. It wasn't when they were just escaping, or when they were crossing the Red Sea. It was when they were going to meet their deaths that God decided to make a dwelling place (tabernacle) among them.

Today I do not doubt that God chooses interesting times to truly reveal himself. Today in the midst of confusion and hurt God gave comfort. He was with me. He reminded me of his ultimate power. The last words I left class with on Thursday were about Emmanuel, God with us.

As you struggle through various things in life, remember God is always with you...but it is in those times of trouble and hardship that He is especially close.