God Goes Ahead of You

“So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.” Deuteronomy 31:6

Life is full of twists and turns. Everything can change in a moment, but it’s comforting to know that nothing takes God by surprise. Nothing catches Him off guard. I love how this verse says, “For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you.” God stands outside of time and space and sees both the beginning and the end. He personally goes ahead of us. 

Jesus and his disciples were approaching Jerusalem when Jesus sent two of them to fetch a donkey for him to ride. Jesus could have walked into Jerusalem. He walked practically everywhere he went, but to fulfill the prophecy given by Zechariah 500 years earlier that a King would present himself to Jerusalem riding on a donkey (actually the colt of a donkey), he sent his disciples. How was it that the donkey and its colt were in the exact place where Jesus said they would find them? God had personally gone ahead of them. 

Three years before this date, God had gone ahead to make sure that a colt was born. The colt was nurtured and kept with its mother. Then at exactly the right time, it was brought to this specific location in this specific village and tied in this specific place for the disciples to find. God had personally gone ahead of them and prepared the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy. 

God goes ahead of us as well. While we can’t see into the future, we can look at what’s behind us and see how God has gone before us and prepared the way. Maybe you didn’t get the job you were hoping for because there was a better job coming. Maybe you were disappointed because you were forced to retire earlier than planned, but now you can see that you would have missed out on so many things if you had kept working. Maybe God didn’t give you children when you were hoping to have them, but you can’t imagine the timing being any more perfect than it turned out to be.  

If I have learned anything over the years, it would be to not worry about the way things appear. Things have a way of changing. The Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.