God Is Still With Us

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”  Romans 8:31 (ESV)

Each week, we highlight verses in Scripture that have spoken to us that week.

Sometimes, we run across sad passages and verses that make us pause.

To us, the most tragic verses are those that show people turning away from Jesus, even when they witness his ministry first-hand. John tells us, “Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him” (John 12:37). The people saw the miracles with their own eyes and still walked away.

Naomi Believed a Lie

But perhaps one of the saddest verses comes from the book of Ruth. The whole book is God’s story of rescuing love, and we can see that plainly with our hindsight. We know how it ends.

Naomi didn’t, and she surely didn’t trust it. Instead she said, “No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the LORD has gone out against me” (Ruth 1:13).

Naomi believed a lie. She was convinced God’s hand was against her.

God had carried her and Israel through the famine, but she believed the lie. God gave her Ruth, who refused to leave her side, but she believed the lie. God had given her a community and a home to return to, but she believed the lie.

Naomi headed toward Bethlehem, toward God, but she did it shaking her fist at him. She let everyone know God had let her down.

Here’s the truth she couldn’t see. At the very moment Naomi was crying out against God, He was working for her.

God Is For Us

Naomi could never have imagined all God was doing. But she could have lifted her eyes off her circumstances and fixed them on who God really was for her. He was her comfort, her hope, her future. He was her provision, her guide and rescue.

And friends, God is for us too.

David clung to that truth when he was running for his life from a murderous Saul and found himself seized by the Philistines. This was the man who’d faithfully shepherded his father’s flocks, struck down the giant, and then served the very king now hunting him. He had every earthly reason to accuse God in such an unjust and dangerous place. Instead, David declared, “This I know, that God is for me” (Psalm 56:9).

Our circumstances and our enemy will scream lies about who God is. Our job is to fix our eyes and our hearts on who God says He is.

He is our comfort, our hope, our future. He is our provision, our guide. Our rescue.

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” Paul writes in Romans 8:31.

Right now, as you read this, God is working for you. Right now, His goodness is for you. Right now, He knows the direction He’s leading you. Like Naomi, none of us can begin to imagine all He’s doing, for as Paul further writes in Ephesians 3:20, God “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.”

Changing Our Focus

So let’s move our eyes off the lies and fix them squarely on God, on His character, and on His promises for us. It’s okay to say, “God, I’m hurting,” or “God, this isn’t the plan I wanted.” But instead of raising a fist, let’s raise our prayers.

Because right now, God is for you.

Reflection: Where are you tempted, like Naomi, to read your hard circumstances as a sign that God has turned against you? What would change if you fixed your eyes on who He says He is instead?

May God continuously lead your path