He Will Be with You

Meditations on

Staying In the Grace for Today 

July 17, 2025

He Will Be with You

Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you.

He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you.”

Deuteronomy 31:8 

I recall hearing Henry Blackaby, in his course Experiencing God, share how traumatic it was for him when his daughter was diagnosed with cancer. He struggled for a while, blaming himself, and wondering what he had done wrong, what sin he had committed, that allowed this evil disease to be visited upon his child. Ultimately, Blackaby was able to affirm in his life the truth we saw in Monday’s meditation: he was a child of God, and as we see in Psalm 56,

8You keep track of all my sorrows.

    You have collected all my tears in your bottle.

    You have recorded each one in your book.

 9bThis I know: God is on my side!

With his reaffirmation that his life belonged to God, he was able to embrace the truth of God’s words in Deuteronomy 31:8.

Blackaby’s struggle is just one of thousands and thousands of struggles Christians have experienced since the resurrection of Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Continually, Christians wonder if God is mad at them; is their sin forgivable; are they good enough? This struggle is captured in the opening lyric of the song, Who Am I by the group Casting Crowns: “Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth would care to know my name?”

We saw the answer to this lyrical question in yesterday’s meditation, and today’s scripture passage reveals the confidence our Heavenly Father wants His children to experience.

Recently one of my tennis buddies asked me why Jesus admonished his disciples lack of faith when they were on the lake in a raging storm. (Mark 4:35-41) Fearful for their lives, the disciples woke Jesus from his nap and said, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?” My friend said their boat was about to be capsized and it seems they were right to be afraid. I told my friend, Jesus wanted his disciples to grasp the truth that when he was with them, they need not be afraid or discouraged, for He will personally go ahead of them. He will not abandon them. By the time of his ascension, the disciples, well eleven of them, learned this lesson.

My Takeaway: Because we belong to God, by creation and redemption, we can trust that no matter how we feel or what we are experiencing in the world, God wants us to not be afraid or discouraged, for He will personally go ahead of us. He will be with us; He will neither fail us nor abandon us.

Sē’lah

My book on prayer,

First Think, Then Pray

is now available on Amazon Kindle.

 

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2025 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.