We were sitting at Panera’s and my friend was praying when she said, “be in our midst”. The hairs on my arm stood up. In the past week the Lord had been saying to me that He would be in my midst. You see, my mom had died the previous week and I was grieving her loss. The Lord had been comforting me by saying that He would be in my midst!
When you search for the phrase “in your midst”, or “in the midst of the congregation/assembly” you will find many occurrences of this phrase in the bible. All of these phrases deal with God either being in the midst of His people or not being in the midst of His people. When we look at what happens when God is in our midst, it is stunning to see the results. Here are just a few of them, because there are so many!
- The miraculous- What you thought couldn’t happen does happen when God is in our midst. The sea divides and the Israelites walk across dry land because God “was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night” (Exodus 13:21). We see Yeshua also demonstrating the miraculous in the New Testament when He raises Lazarus from the dead! In John 11:21 Martha says to Yeshua, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” Yeshua goes to Lazarus’ tomb and the miraculous happens with Lazarus coming back to life.
- His Provision- When your need is met and you couldn’t have imagined it would happen this way. The Lord provided for the Israelites in every way. He provided protection, a system of justice, a way of atonement, land, and nourishment. Everything that was needed was thought of because they were His people. He loved them, so He provided everything that they would need. In Exodus 16:12, “…At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God.” Even when they had grumbled against God, He provided the food that they needed. Yeshua also provided for the people. In Matthew 14:15-21, we see Yeshua providing for the crowd of 5,000 people that were following after Him. They were hungry, and it was late, and they needed to eat. They had only five loaves and two fish, and with that Yeshua blessed God and multiplied the food to feed 5,000 people!
- Deliverance- When the Lord makes a way of escape for you where there was no way. In Daniel 6:16, we see Daniel being thrown into the lion’s den. The verse says, “Then the king gave orders, and Daniel was brought in and cast into the lions’ den. The king spoke and said to Daniel, ‘Your God, whom you constantly serve, will Himself deliver you.”’ King Darius stays up all night and fasts for Daniels deliverance, and when he comes back in the morning, he says, “….Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you constantly serve been able to deliver you from the lions?” The answer was yes! The lion’s didn’t touch Daniel. In Matthew 9:20-22 we see a woman who had an issue of blood for twelve years, that was delivered of her illness by Yeshua. In verse 21 she says, “If I only touch His garment, I will get well.” When He was in her midst and she reached out to His tzitzit (fringes) she was healed and delivered. For a woman to have a flow of blood for twelve years meant that she was ostracized from her community, and alienated from her family. This healing restored not just her health, but her life!
God desires for us to recognize that He is in our midst. When we see Him in our midst, and reach out to Him in our everyday life, we will see His miracles, His provision, His deliverance and much more!