I am meditating on the familiar and oft-quoted truth, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” It’s a phrase that appears in many prayers, often without deep consideration of its astonishing implications for our faith-in-Christ journey.
Today, I have a fresh awareness of Him walking beside me, never so far ahead that I have to catch up to Him. Instead, He slows His pace to walk with me. “I will never leave you” means He calibrates His pace to mine, not the other way around. He encourages me forward, hearing my concerns along the way, and invites me to cast all my anxieties on Him. Even if and when I stop walking—or even turn around—He doesn’t keep going, nor does He drag me along.
With this perspective, I need not fear complacency, a loss of zeal, or a lack of spiritual discipline, because the work that God wants me to do most and the discipline He wants me to master are not measured by my outward display of “spirituality” but by my heart of reliance upon Him—my faith in Him. He wants me to believe in the One whom the Father has sent and lean into my neediness of Him, staying constantly engaged with Him.
In short, “I will never leave you” invites me to be relationally connected to Him at all times, believing He loves me, cares for me, and is there to “sympathize with my weaknesses” instead of judging them. It encourages me to trust Him to coach me forward in my faith and to be assured that in the race set before me, He’s not standing at the finish line holding a stopwatch.
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