When You Pass Through the Waters

There’s a particular kind of fear that shows up the second your foot can’t find the bottom.

I learned it young, in a lake I thought I knew. I waded out the way I always did, took one more step, and the bottom just wasn’t there. I went from chest-deep to over my head in a single stride. I came up sputtering, grabbed for somebody’s arm, and made it back to where I could stand. I remember the feeling more than the danger. That half second when the ground I’d been counting on simply stopped.

Most of us know that feeling without ever getting wet.

A diagnosis read out loud in a quiet room. A meeting that doesn’t go the way you planned. A marriage that’s gone quiet at the dinner table. A bank balance that won’t stretch to the end of the month. The bottom you’d been standing on isn’t there anymore, and the fear shows up before you’ve even had time to name what’s happening.

Isaiah was writing to people who were about to lose the bottom.

Exile was coming. The nation would be carried off. The temple would fall. Everything they’d counted on was about to go under. And right into that, God says this:

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.” (Isaiah 43:2)

Look at the word He picks. He doesn’t say if. He says when. The water’s coming. The crossing isn’t optional. God never promises you a life where your foot always finds the bottom.

He promises something better. He promises to be in the water with you.

The chapter opens one verse earlier with a line the whole book I’ve been writing hangs on. “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” (Isaiah 43:1)

I’ve spent a long time sitting with that little word, for. Fear not, for. The command to stop being afraid never shows up by itself. It always comes attached to a reason. God doesn’t walk up to a scared person and tell them to try harder at not being afraid. He tells them who He is, and who they are to Him, and the fear loses its grip from there.

That’s the exchange.

You don’t talk yourself out of fear. You trade it. You hand over the fear that says the water’s going to end you, and you take hold of the One who’s already standing in it.

This is the first step of a crossing we’re going to walk together over the next few weeks. Isaiah 43, one piece at a time, leading up to the release of Fear God, Fear Not on July 14. It’s not a countdown. It’s a walk. Because I think a lot of us are standing at the edge of some water right now, working up the nerve to take the step where the bottom drops out.

So here’s where we start. The water’s real. The fear’s honest. And you’re not walking in alone.

When you pass through the waters, He’s with you.

That’s enough for today. We’ll take the next step soon.

Todd writes a short weekly email called The Friday Note. If this met you where you are, that’s where the rest of the walk to July 14 will land. You can start the Legacy Together preview and join the note here.