Words of Grace

By Rev. Mahlon Nevel

When God sent Moses to lead the people to the Promised Land, the Lord promised to prepare the way. He said, “And I will send an angel before thee” (Exodus 33:2).

The presence of an angel wasn’t what Moses wanted. He said that if God’s presence did not go with him, then he would not go. So the Lord made the following promise: “My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest” (v.14).

Moses would be passing through a land that he had never passed through before. How comforting it was for him to know that he would not have to lead the people alone.

We are passing from the old year into the new year, a year that we have never passed through before. With this thought in mind, someone has written His Unfailing Presence to give us hope for the coming year.

Another year I enter, its history is unknown. Oh, how my feet would tremble to tread its paths alone! But I have heard a whisper and I know I shall be blessed: “My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.”

What will the new year bring me? I may not, must not know. Will it be love and rapture, or loneliness and woe?

Hush! Hush! I hear His whisper; I surely shall be blest: “My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.”