When my granddaughter was three years old we went for a walk that took us through a brick enclosure where our voices produced an echo that frightened her. We talked about the echo and she said that she didn’t want to walk that way again: “When we go to the zoo, and you can show me an echo, I’ll go,” she added. No amount otf explaining changed her idea of an echo.

Recently I couldn’t help thinking that the Scriptures are like echoes that reverberate a message that is sometimes scary and mysterious, and comes back to us in waves as we read and as we live. The Old Testament echoes with disasters that are almost unimaginable, of battles that result in unthinkable carnage and cruelty that comes from kings and pharaohs.

Such things resound with thunderous echoes, but there is another echo that also reverberates: the voice of God in the midst of the fear: “I will never leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous; don’t be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)

This message was echoed by David many years later to his son Solomon concerning the building of the Temple in Jerusalem, and the message “Do not be afraid” is echoed by an angel to Daniel: “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come to respond to them.”(Daniel 10:19)

The echo of the words “Don’t be afraid” travels down the centuries until those words are heard by a young girl named Mary who will give birth to the Christ.: “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.”(Luke 1:29. Likewise the message came to Joseph: “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as our wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 1:20)

There is indeed much that is terrifying in our world, as there was in the biblical world, but the loudest, most persistent echoes from the Bible are the ones spoken by our God Himself, and the God of the ancient Hebrews: “Don’t be afraid.”

My granddaughter trusted me to show her an echo. Our God has supplied a real echo in His book, of His spirit in our lives. The more we read His book, the clearer the echo becomes, and the deeper the assurance that His words are true and truly resound with His love and assurance.

Love in Him, Prue