About 700 years before Jesus was born on earth, there was a prophet named Isaiah. Throughout his ministry, he proclaimed warnings about the sins of the people while also declaring hope that the Messiah would come to provide a way for the peoples’ sins to be forgiven. In a book Isaiah wrote, he described an important vision that he had. “In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple.” (Isaiah 6:1 NIV)

This verse describes the time of Isaiah’s vision and what he saw. The throne and the one seated on it were magnificent and the robe was special because of its train. Why was a long train so significant?

After some research, I discovered that in that day, if a king had a robe with a long train, it symbolized strength and security. When the king of one country conquered the king of another country, the conquering king would have some part of that robe’s train sewn onto his own robe. The more enemies he conquered, the longer the train of his robe became and the safer his kingdom was. This is impressive on an earthly level. However, let’s consider the meaning of the Lord’s massive train.

This picture of our Lord’s long train represents His even greater conquering power over all evil compared to an earthly king conquering one enemy. Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah would come to provide a way to have our sins forgiven and that has now been fulfilled! Jesus took the punishment we deserve. We only need to ask for His forgiveness. Then, as we look into the New Year, we can feel secure even though it appears to be another year full of Covid, wars, and rumors of wars, violence, anger, earthquakes, fires, floods, tornados, melting glaciers, a struggling economy, loss and hurt. Rather than focus on those things, we must focus on the fact that our powerful God King is in control of all. He sees all, knows all, hears all and is stronger than any of our challenges. Our God is mighty, creator, provider, healer, sanctifier, shepherd, peace maker and again, our Savior. He is the one true King who can free us from our sin and then free us from our worry and anxiety and give us peace in the midst of these troubled times.

Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they?…and why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or “What shall we wear?’ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness….Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6: 25-26, 28, 31, 33a, 34 NIV)

As we commit our lives to Christ, we can experience His forgiveness and thus have the security that even if our circumstances don’t turn out the way WE want them, they will turn out the way He has planned for our good and His glory!

Helen McCormack is from Minot. Her book, “Ordinary Life, Extraordinary God” which contains about 1/3 of the devotionals written for the Minot Daily News over the last 20+ years is available by contacting her at jesusisthereason01@gmail.com.