"It Will Be Allright, For I Am With You.."

Read: Haggai 2:1-9 
The people of Israel had returned from exile just a few years before. They came back to a place that was home and yet not home. They had to live alongside with the unfamiliar ‘remnant’ in the land. They had to rebuild homes and businesses. They suffered through drought. Most of all, they had to rebuild the Temple and reconcile the faith they kept in exile with the faith they now needed to sustain them in the future. Their lives were unsettled and uncertain, full of unease and anxiety.

In the midst of their struggle, the Lord encourages the people to be strong, to be courageous, to keep on, to move forward, to not let the past become the definition of the future. “It will be alright,” says the Lord, “for I am with you.”

Today, we, too, live in uncertainty and unease. Some of us wonder whether we can make it through tough economic times, or whether we will have a job tomorrow or next year. We fear the terrorist from another shore and the thief down the street. Even our familiar ways of faith are unsettled. Yet in this season, God reminds us in a most amazing way, with the birth of a child, that God is still with us and will bring us Shalom, wholeness, peace, and rest.

- IES Church Devotional Digest, 10-Dec-2011