How do you perceive God? Is He hard and cruel and unbending? Some people think so. Yet, the Bible doesn’t present this picture of God. The Bible presents Him as one who is calling for wholeness and health and life and blessing. He works so as to remove all barriers to His “good and acceptable and perfect will” (see Rom. 12:2). He lives in His world in truthfulness and justice, and at the heart of all He does is redemption, love, forgiveness, and salvation from anything that would destroy His “good and acceptable and perfect will” from being realized in the lives of people.

We live in a world where “the grass withers, the flower fades.” It is a transient world and everything moves toward the day of its death. That seems to be a fatalistic way of seeing, but it really isn’t. In this transient and temporary world the eternal God of the universe has come. He hasn’t written off the world. Rather, He is here “with might” (see Isaiah 40: 8-10). He is present as a Shepherd taking care of His flock. God is not hard, cruel, and unbending. When He is present the word goes out, “Comfort, O comfort My people” (Is. 40:1).

God is present. This is the good news. He is here not to write off but to include. Are you broken at some point in your life? Your brokenness cannot deter God. Are you bruised by some past action? Your past cannot deter God. Do you feel helpless? Your helplessness cannot deter God.

Listen for the voice of God, and hear His Word. If you do you will discover “the glory of the Lord” (Is. 40:5). Could it be that God is wanting to say to you that your “warfare has ended” (Is. 40:2)? Is there something in your life God wants to clean out and jettison away so that His “good and acceptable and perfect will” might be done (Rom. 12:2)? Each of our has our own story. God is aware of it, and is present to speak His grace into our lives.