This morning I found myself in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 62:12 to be precise.

“And they shall be called The Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord; and you shall be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.”

I took a moment to glance through my ESV Study Bible to find that the “they” is “God’s old covenant people Israel, plus all others willing to join them.” So in short, us. Me, you, the Christian of today and the Christian of yesterday. Believers.

The passage tells us that God seeks us out. That God’s grace is seen through the fact that we were not only sought, but sought out by Him. What does that even mean? Or rather, what does it really mean to seek something or someone out? C.H. Spurgeon paints it this way:

“… [We] were lost in a labyrinth; we wandered hither and thither, and when mercy came after us with the gospel, it did not find us at the first coming, it had to search for us and seek us out; for we as lost sheep were so desperately lost, and had wandered into such a strange country, that it did not seem possible that even the Good Shepherd should track our devious roamings. Glory be to unconquerable grace, we were sought out! No gloom could hide us, no filthiness could conceal us, we were found and brought home.”

For those of you that have been in a labyrinth (or like me, have been in one in a video game), you know that at some point, it gets very nerve-racking, almost scary because you’re not quite sure where you are. But any labyrinth that any of us have experienced, there was no real danger in our experience. But in the labyrinth that Spurgeon is describing, there is evil and harm around every bend. And God waltzes in and seeks us out. He marches into our dangerous situation and rescues us. Redeems us. Brings us home.

God calls us, His people, “Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.”

Every day I try to read this daily devotional written by CH Spurgeon. There’s a morning and an evening passage with Spurgeon’s notes/thoughts on the passage. I usually end up reading the evening one the next day because I almost always forget to read it in the actual evening.

Yesterday’s evening passage brought me to an interesting passage of scripture: Ezekiel 35:10.

“Because you said, ‘these two nations and these two countries shall be mine and we will take possession of them’–although the Lord was there–“

Spurgeon is trying to get us to see one basic aspect of God we sometimes under-appreciate: that He’s always there.

In Ezekiel, we’re talking about God’s chosen people, and how they cannot truly be conquered because God is always with them on their side.

In our daily lives here in the 21st century, Spurgeon draws us this picture:

“If the Lord be with us through life, we need not fear for our dying confidence; for when we come to die, we shall find that ‘the LORD is there;’ where the billows are most tempestuous, and the water is most chill, we shall feel the bottom, and know that it is good: our feet shall stand upon the Rock of Ages when time is passing away. Beloved, from the first of a Christian’s life to the last, the only reason why he does not perish is because ‘the LORD is there.'”

No matter what, we survive because God is always with us. Because we wouldn’t make it without Him. Because the only reason why anything virtuous or lovely survives in us is because “the LORD is there.”

Jehovah Shammah: “The Lord is there.”