by Tom Greenslade

Created on: November 07, 2008

This is the best part of knowing Jesus Christ. I am never alone. He is always with me. I relish this.

The Lord Jesus also relished this. One day as he told his disciples that he was going to suffer death for us, he told them "a time is coming, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me." (John 16:32)

At the most fearful moment, when he had the greatest need, he was abandoned by his disciples. His enemies were all around him. They beat him down until he could not stand under the weight of his cross. He was nailed helpless to even wipe the blood and sweat from his eyes. He was being killed, helpless, seeming along, but he was not alone. His father was with him every step of the way. He saw him and held him through each cutting blow. This beating and dying was what he knew his father wanted him to do to make a way for his father's wrath to be completed for those he would save. He knew his father would always be there with him each step of the way, not to be abandoned at the moment of death, but to carry him to paradise, and then to triumphantly change and raise his battered body from his tomb.

That same confidence is mine. He promised that he will always be with me as I go through the alone times that are a part of the journey he has for me. As the poem "Footprints in the Sand" puts it so well, "The times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand is when I carried you."

Being abandoned is perhaps the last thing you expect to happen to you. You have your family and your friends. But life happens. Family or friends die or just get their nose out of joint. Your job may move you, or you lose your job. You lose your health, and are buried in a mountain of doctor and Rx bills. You begin to suffer pain that not even the Dr. understands, and you can feel very alone. You get older, your parents die, your siblings have their own families, and your kids have grown and moved out. Old friends go on doing what you can't do anymore, or spend what you can't spend anymore and you may truly be quite alone.

Paul writes about being in that situation. "At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them." (I Timothy 4:16) Then he states the very same kind of assurance that the Lord Jesus did. "But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And

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