Nahum-God’s Comfort

“The Lord is good, a strong refuge when trouble comes. He is close to those who trust Him.” Nahum 1:7 NLT

     I did some research on the book of Nahum to gain deeper understanding. The Blue Letter Bible online is one of my favorite resources. Here’s what I found there:

     “The name Nahum is an abbreviated form of the name Nehemiah, which means ‘Comfort of Yahweh.’ He knows those who trust in Him: Not only does He know them in the sense of identification, but also in the sense of relationship. Trust implies relationship, and God knows those who trust in Him. "Once more, dear friends, this word 'know' here means loving communion … God knows us; he knows our prayers and tears, he knows our wishes, he knows that we are not what we want to be, but he knows what we do desire to be. He knows our aspirations, our sighs, our groans, our secret longings, our own chastenings of spirit when we fail; he has entered into it all. He says, 'Yes, dear child, I know all about you; I have been with you when you thought you were alone. I have read what you could not read, the secrets of your own heart that you could not decipher I have known them all, and I still know them.'" (Spurgeon)”

     I am almost speechless, like they way you feel when something takes your breath away and all you can do is stand there trying to hold on to the moment. I could stop right here and not write another word but I want to see if we, together, can internalize what we’ve just read somehow.

     We have, innate within us, a longing to be known, to be fully ourselves, to be accepted, and to be loved as we are.  Along life’s journey we take some hits in this area. People fail us and we fail others, because we live in a broken world. We don’t meet others’ expectations. Others don’t meet our expectations. We don’t even meet our own expectations. It can leave us feeling oh so broken, bitter, and jaded. It can be hard to believe God really wants to know us or that He cares because we put human characteristics on Him and we view Him through a cloudy lens. We limit Him to our own understanding. I’ve been there myself. But guess what? God put that desire in us. We didn’t come up with it by ourselves. So what do we do with this?

     The journey I’m on, and have been for a “fat minute” (as my daughter says ☺️), is to know the heart of the Father. I want to know Him as He is, not as I have perceived Him to be through my broken filter. I want to know how He sees me and to experience His longing for me. I want to know what that looks like, to believe His truth, and to believe He is with me always even when my eyes don’t see and my senses don’t perceive. I want to be one who trusts Him!

     We are faced with the onslaught of the enemy’s lies constantly and sometimes we give in and believe the lies. My journey has been to ask God for truth in those moments, wait for Him to speak, then ask Him to help me believe what He says. It looks super spiritual (sarcasm haha) and goes like this: “God, I feel unimportant, unloved, and invisible. How do you see me? Will you show me? Will You give me eyes to see You?”

     Anybody traveling on this path also? He sees you and me. He feels what we feel. He wants us more than we can understand and He wants to show us. I picture Him with a huge smile on His face, overjoyed, anticipating the gift He wants to give us. He can’t wait for us to open it.

     “Now I will break the yoke of bondage from your neck and tear off the chains of Assyrian oppression,” Nahum 1:13. Do it Lord. Give us eyes to see You and senses to perceive You!