God With Us
READ
"God with us." Two simple words that change everything. When Isaiah spoke this prophecy to King Ahaz, the nation was in crisis mode. Enemies were threatening, fear was thick, and Ahaz was trying to figure out political alliances that might save his kingdom. Into that anxiety, God offers a sign: a virgin will conceive and bear a son, and his name will be Emmanuel—God with us.
Let’s take a moment to read Isaiah 7:14:
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
REFLECT
The remarkable thing isn't just that God promised to send someone. It's that He promised to be with them. Not God watching from a distance. Not God occasionally checking in. God with us—in the mess, in the fear, in the uncertainty.
We're pretty good at keeping God at arm's length. We'll go to church, read our Bibles, maybe even pray regularly. But actually inviting God into the complicated, messy, unglamorous parts of our lives? That feels vulnerable. It's easier to try to clean ourselves up first, to present our "best self" to God, to keep certain rooms of our hearts locked until we can get them in order.
But Emmanuel means God doesn't wait for an invitation to the cleaned-up version of our lives. He steps into the chaos. The Incarnation—God taking on flesh—was about proximity. Jesus didn't keep a divine distance, offering advice from heaven. He moved into the neighborhood. He got hungry, tired, frustrated. He attended weddings and funerals. He touched lepers and let questionable people into His friend group.
That's the kind of "with us" God chose. Not hovering above our problems but entering into them. Not fixing everything from a safe distance but sitting in the wreckage with us, getting His hands dirty with our humanity.
This matters for how we understand God's love. It's not a detached, theoretical love that wishes us well from afar. It's a fierce, committed, show-up kind of love that refuses to leave us alone in our struggles. When we're facing uncertainty, God is with us. When we're overwhelmed by circumstances we didn't choose, God is with us. When we feel isolated and unseen, God is with us.
During Advent, we prepare to celebrate the moment when "with us" became literal—when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. But Emmanuel isn't just about something that happened two thousand years ago. It's about how God continues to show up in our present reality. Every moment we're tempted to think we're facing life alone, Emmanuel whispers a different truth: you're not abandoned, you're not forgotten, you're not left to figure this out by yourself. The God who tore open the heavens to be born in a Bethlehem stable is the same God who enters into your Tuesday afternoon, your difficult conversation, your middle-of-the-night worry. He didn't come just to visit; He came to stay.
RESPOND
Take a moment to process what God might be leading you to do in light of what you read.
What does it mean to you personally that God chose to be "with us" rather than remain distant?
Where do you need to experience Emmanuel—God with you—most right now?
How might your life look different if you truly believed God is present in every moment?
REST
Take a moment to rest in God’s presence and consider one thing you can take away from your time reading, then close your devotional experience by praying:
Emmanuel, God with us, thank you for not keeping your distance. Thank you for entering into our mess, our pain, our ordinary moments. Help me recognize your presence today—not just in the big, obvious ways, but in the quiet, everyday ways you show up. Teach me what it means to live with you, not just for you. Amen.