Follow Close
5 min read
5 I thought about the former days,
the years of long ago;6 I remembered my songs in the night.
My heart meditated and my spirit asked:7 “Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favor again?8 Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
Has his promise failed for all time?9 Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has he in anger withheld his compassion?” Selah— Psalm 77:5-9
If I am going through a season of trouble and distress, I can never blame God for my troubles. At the same time, I understand that every bad thing in this world is the result of sin—idolatry, in particular. And if I am chasing after idols, I am certainly not following Christ.
In other words, it’s not so much that God abandons us, but that we stop following Christ. And when we stop following Christ, we subject ourselves to the chaos of a sinful world without the benefit of God’s providence and protection—God with us.
The lesson of 1 Samuel is on target in that regard.
“Do not be afraid,” Samuel replied. “You have done all this evil; yet do not turn away from the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart.”
- 1 Samuel 12:20
There is sin that we acknowledge and confess and for which we repent—that is, return to the Lord. Then there is sin that we cling to and for which we do not return to the Lord.
At the same time, we might experience trouble and distress because of the sin of others. For no fault of our own, we get caught up in the consequences of other people’s sin. The closer they are to us, the more we get caught up in those consequences.
Whatever the case, we must continue to follow Christ. That is our only hope.
We must be thoroughly convicted that our Lord will not reject forever, His favor will be restored to us, His unfailing love is unfailing and will never vanish forever, His promise is a promise and will never fail. Our merciful God will never forget to be merciful, and our compassionate God will never withhold His compassion.
Those truths, and my conviction of those truths, compel me to never turn away from the LORD—even in my sin—but to repent and serve the LORD with all my heart.
Father, Your love never fails, even when I am found unfaithful. But let me hold on to the truth of Your unfailing love for me and for everyone. You have been faithful every time I have cried out to You in repentance. Let not the shortfall of my human understanding keep me from returning to You and following You every time. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
