So, where leaving may imply a temporary status, forsaking is more permanent. God is promising us here that He will never leave us entirely or abandon us. Sometimes we can place our own human shortcomings on God. We think that if somehow we fall so short of His glory that He will somehow walk away from us. Untrue:
if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself. 2Timothy 2:13
God will always remain faithful beloved. It is one of His attributes. He will not leave us, nor forsake us and commands us that we should not be afraid, nor discouraged. Concluding the examination of the key verse, God also promises two things He will do. He will always go before you and will always be with you. What a glorious promise to base our faith on! No matter what situation we might be heading into, God will always go before us. God will always lead the way. King David walked in that confidence and reminds us that the result is an unshakable faith:
I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Psalm 16: 8
While God will always go before us, we also must learn to set God before us. That is the faith part of it. David knew that God always went before him but he needed to remember that and have faith in that. He set the Lord always before him. The result of which is that his faith was unshaken. That should be the type of faith we seek as well. If God Almighty goes before us into any situation, how can we be shaken?
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? Romans 8:31
Who indeed? The enemy? He may be armed with fear and discouragement but we are armed with faith. We just need to wield it effectively. We need to know that fear and discouragement are not of God. We need to know that He will never leave us nor forsake us. We need to know that He goes before us in every situation and lastly, that He is with us as well.
Not only does God go before you beloved but He is right there with you. As David said, He is at your right hand. But we are sensory beings sometimes and we can tend to believe what we see instead of what we know; what we believe. Therein lies the problem. We need to develop a deeper and more intimate relationship with God so that we can sense Him better in the storm. We need to lead an active prayer life, communicating with our Lord and Savior. We need to be reading His Word, to gain His insight, to learn His precepts. Then when the enemy comes at us with visual discouragement and fear, we just reach to our right hand for the God we have placed our faith in and our faith will win the day.
