Isaiah 43:4-7

I ask that God would draw me into today’s reading, wherever God desires me to be, to receive whatever God desires me to receive.

I invite God to speak these words to me. How does God seem to me here? I allow myself to notice the love spoken into my life through these words. I notice what’s going on inside of me as I hear them.

“But now thus says the Lord,
   he who created you, O Jacob,
   he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
   I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
   and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
   and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God,
   the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I give Egypt as your ransom,
   Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you.
Because you are precious in my sight,
   and honored, and I love you,
I give people in return for you,
   nations in exchange for your life.
Do not fear, for I am with you;
   I will bring your offspring from the east,
   and from the west I will gather you;
I will say to the north, ‘Give them up’,
   and to the south, ‘Do not withhold;
bring my sons from far away
   and my daughters from the end of the earth—
everyone who is called by my name,
   whom I created for my glory,
   whom I formed and made.”

I linger with God in the space of this passage before I move on. If I feel “finished,” I linger even a bit longer, asking, Is there anything else, Lord?