God is Close Beside You

Psalm 23:4-5(NLT)
“4 Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me. 5 You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings.”

In the passage of Psalm 23:4-5, through the psalmist, King David, God demonstrates the wonderful reality of His faithfulness to us, His people. In the hour of our greatest struggles and deepest anguish, God is close beside us. He never leaves us defenseless or without access to His power and strength. In the face of our enemies, He really piles on the excess of His grace and provision. He causes us to prosper in victory time after time, and we can be fully confident that He is always there when we need Him most.

The situations of life that cause us pain seem permanent, as though they will never end, but this is not the truth. Through our darkest valley God is with us. Through His Holy Spirit, He victoriously walks us through the complexities and challenges of life. Romans 1:17 tells us that through Christ, God has made us right in His sight, and this is accomplished from start to finish by our faith in Him. We, as His children, move from faith to faith, witnessing God’s power and love in a multitude of ways. With each hardship, He teaches us more and more that truly He is all we need.

Those of us that have endured, and are currently enduring, domestic violence and abuse know a little bit about walking through the darkest valley. Most of us have dreamed of a love from a man that is so sweet, and the pursuit of it has driven us most of our lives. It’s ‘the thing’ for us, the breadth of a deep and wide salve that is meant to soothe the longing of our souls. In our dreams, it will transport us to sheer bliss. It comes through the one whose manhood fits so perfectly in the joy of our hearts that he fills us with a pleasure beyond words. As women, we want this, and the desire is wired so deep in us that the sorrow of being without it is all-consuming at times. It’s the sorrow of being without ‘the thing’ that drives us to accept far less, and this can leave us in a valley so dark that we forget the joy of the light.

Some of us are disillusioned, disappointed, and sad. We feel defeated, and we’ve grown so accustomed to this state of being that we can no longer weep for ‘the thing’ we don’t have. We’re in a state of shock almost, because what we have currently is so far from what our souls know we were destined to embrace. So, we’re not in our right place, and what we have is not our destiny. Many of us have not yet realized this, but the voice of what we’re missing is reverberating at a pitch too high to ignore. It’s spilling over into everything we touch and everything we do. We pretend to ignore it because our minds haven’t yet conquered fear. Our minds tell us that having nothing at all is worse than waiting for ‘the thing’ that may never be ours.

Too many of us are punishing ourselves by accepting far less than what God wants us to have. We’re constantly longing for that perfect and blissful love, and we don’t know what to do. Well, the psalmist, David, tells us exactly what to do. In Psalm 130:5(NIV), he said, “I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.” Here, God is giving us medicine for our souls, medicine that comes into our emptiness and fills it with God’s love, strength, and power. We can’t place our hope in anything or anyone else in life with any guarantees, but we can put our total and complete trust in God, because His Word and His love never fails.

God is nearer to us than we are to ourselves. He’s our Creator! His Spirit lives within, and He is always close. The love that we’ve been missing is the love He gives, and we need to receive it in the deepest part of our cores. We need the Word of God to be rooted in our hearts and minds so that we are not tricked by counterfeits, but we recognize the real deal. God’s truth is the meat our souls need. In good times and in the bad times, He will never leave us nor forsake us. He wants His love to be anchored deep within so that our voids are filled, and we live each day loving Him and enjoying the wholeness He’s given us in Christ.■

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“God is Close Beside You”, written by Kim for https://rescuefromdomesticviolence.blogspot.com© 2022. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.