CHAPTER TWO: THE ARRIVAL

Have you ever been promised something but then had to wait a long time for the promise to be kept? You wait and you wait, anticipating the result you want, but eventually if it goes on for too long, you begin to lose hope that the promise will ever be kept. When that happens, you can begin to feel like it may never take place, which can lead to despair and doubt about the one making the promise. It can push us toward isolation from them and toward a loneliness that leads to losing trust. It can even feel crushing or suffocating. Now imagine waiting seven hundred years for your promise.

The prophet Isaiah wrote his book (found in the Bible’s Old Testament) promising a Messiah, Immanuel, “God With Us,” to be given to the nation of Israel. He wrote this while both the nation of Israel and the nation of Judah were still functioning as a nation, and before the destruction of Judah by the Babylonians in 586-586 BC.  It would be seven hundred years before that promise was kept. The last four hundred years of that span was known by many as “the silent years” because there was no prophetic record for those years… and it was as if God wasn’t speaking to his people. Finally, after that long wait, the promise was realized when Jesus—the Messiah—was born.

Unfortunately, even though a nation was looking for him, most missed his arrival. Although all of the signs written by Isaiah were there, most failed to see them or trust them. But let’s be careful before we judge them too harshly, because in all actuality things haven’t changed all that much in the approximately two thousand years since Jesus first came onto the scene. Many are still searching for something that could in fact be realized if they would embrace the promise of God regarding Jesus made by Isaiah so many years before.

You see, God had promised from the beginning of time that he was going to show up and that we could all have the opportunity to know him personally. God went from four hundred years of silence to “God With Us,” and even though it may not seem like it sometimes, he is always with us. It is simply a matter of trust. Trusting that God always has our best at heart. Trusting that God is always watching over us. Trusting that God knows what is going on in our lives.

We are all invited to be disciples of Jesus—to obey him and follow him—but it is our decision. In the darkest parts of our lives (when we feel abandoned, alone, afraid, or like God isn’t speaking), we can take a step of faith, a step of obedience to align our lives with God’s truth. And that obedience will always lead to life—a life of promise always connected to our Immanuel, God with us.