Isaiah 41:10 Fear thou not; for I AM with thee: be not dismayed; for I AM thy God. I will strengthen thee; yea I will help thee; yea I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. (KJV)
Right-handed. God is right handed. Jesus sits at the right hand of God. Turns out this is a BIG deal. Like all word pictures in scripture this has great significance. It is important to understanding why it is not necessary for me to be such a scaredy-cat.
The right hand is a symbol of power– Psalm 89:13, a symbol of protection–Psalm 16:8, a symbol of God’s presence–Psalm 16:11, a symbol of God’s saving power–Psalm 60:5, a symbol that God defeats enemies–Exodus 15:6. If I have His power, protection, presence, salvation, and conquering ability on my side what the heck have I got to be afraid of? Exactly! Not one “cotton-pickin” thing! Then, as if this is not sufficient for my doubting Thomas heart, Jesus sits at the right hand of God –Hebrews 1:13. He sits because “IT IS FINISHED!” He is done with His work (you know, taking back the keys to hell and death and paying for my sin!). Now that He is sitting down he takes my feeble prayers and presents them to the Father on my behalf in accordance with His will and He is waiting patiently to get up and go get His bride (the church).
This time of the day, evening, it is deathly quiet in my house. The only sound is the heavy breathing of dogs in slumber. It is pitch black outside here in the woods down the county road where no one would hear my screams if I was injured or in danger. It is funny, really, I am not afraid here. It would be easy to be fearful: to hear every sound that goes bump in the night right outside my window, to keep the gun locked and loaded under my pillow, to arm the security system at all times, but, somehow, I am not afraid of being here alone. I know it makes no sense for me to be such a freaked out mess. The stuff that should make me apprehensive doesn’t and the stuff that should not makes me a prisoner.
Is the Lord my RIGHT HAND? He is willing to be! I am the one who must hand over to HIM what confuses, weakens, beats me down, and defeats me. He is standing right here beside me waiting on me. Geez!!!!! Will I, the doubting Thomasina, ever get this? He is saying: “Ok, sister, One. More. Time. I am with you. I will help you. I will give you strength. I will give you courage, but sweetie, you have GOT TO LET ME HAVE THE PROBLEM!” Isaiah 44:20 the Lord asks, “Is this thing not in my right hand?” (Is this one of those DUH! moments? Yes, I thought so.)
I wonder if this verse sums up all that the LORD is trying to tell us about not being afraid? The Lord says, I WILL, I WILL, I WILL! Not I may, I might, I can. He says, I WILL!
Yvonne
