Advent Season
(Anticipating the Birth of Jesus)
28 Names of Jesus
December 12, 2020
Name #12: “Arm of the Lord”
“Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?” (Isaiah 51:9).
A number of years back, I was on a mission trip, and as an icebreaker, we did an exercise where we tossed around a beach ball with questions on it. If the ball came your way, you were to catch it, and whatever question was closest to your thumbs was the one you had to answer. Reluctantly, the ball came my way, and the question I was forced to answer before the group was, “What are you afraid of?”
Fear is something we have to deal with our entire lives. When we’re younger, oftentimes our fear is of things like spiders or the dark. However, as we age, those fears tend to transition into those things that keep us up at night — the fear of failure, fear of lack of provision, fear for the safety of our children. When dealing with the fears I face in my own life, what I have found is that I’m most fearful when I don’t focus on God in the midst of my problem. When I’m face-to-face with fear, I must admit my first instinct isn’t to turn to God — it’s to panic. Isaiah 51:12 – 13 illustrates why we are prone to panic when we leave God out of the equation:
I, I am he who comforts you;
who are you that you are afraid of man who dies,
of the son of man who is made like grass,
and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker,
who stretched out the heavens
and laid the foundations of the earth,
and you fear continually all the day
because of the wrath of the oppressor,
when he sets himself to destroy?
And where is the wrath of the oppressor?
Have you forgotten “the Lord your Maker”? If I’m honest with myself, the majority of times I find myself in a panic is because I have lost focus of the fact that God is bigger than the problem I’m facing. I don’t believe, however, that keeping God in the equation means we throw caution to the wind. 2 Timothy 1:7 tells us that God has given us not a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind (or self-control), meaning God’s Spirit in us gives us the power to love, to exercise sound judgment, and to overcome in all circumstances because of His presence in us.
How then do we keep ourselves from giving in to panic? The first step is to pause and take time to remember what God has done. Isaiah 51:9 uses the phrase “Arm of the Lord” in calling out to God to display the same power He has before. Then, immediately after, Isaiah 51:10 lists some of the things God had accomplished through his power. In fact, verses 9 – 16 all center around God’s power. I think when we are face-to-face with those things that strike fear into our hearts, we need to remember to pause and bring God into the equation. We need to pause and ask God for direction on how we should move forward. When faced with uncertain times, our reaction should be to stop and ask God, “How do you want me to respond?”, then seek for Him to provide the wisdom, the courage, the power to do so.
I’m currently reading a book that focuses on the story of David and Goliath, and I’ve been giving some thought to David and Saul and fear. Saul was the man that should have stepped up and led in this situation, but in his fear he did nothing. On the flip side, while David was confident — I don’t think he was without fear — I don’t think remembering the power God has makes us fearless. However, remembering the power of God does help us do what David did and be faithful to how God would like us to respond in spite of our fear. In David’s pitch to Saul as to why Saul should allow him to go fight Goliath (1 Samuel 17:34 – 37), David remembered who was responsible for the victory, saying, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” That is the attitude we need to have moving forward. It’s unrealistic to expect ourselves to be without fear. It’s also not healthy to allow ourselves to give in to panic. Instead, we need to do our best to move forward as God has directed us, remembering Who is responsible for the outcome.
Adam Deering