To look at the world today is to see a pretty godless place. Even those who profess that mankind is generally good are starting to lose their resolve. Dictators kill millions of their own people and fifty millions babies have been slaughtered in the name of choice, in the name of convenience. There are wars and rumors of wars. Our enemies are at the gates.
Where is God in all this? Are we not a Christian nation? Are we not Gods people? God had so blessed our nation that there seemed to be no end to it. It seems as if he is taking his hand off our country. Today God can seem so very far away. Have we lost our way?
The book of second kings ends with the destruction of Jerusalem. Solomon’s great temple destroyed, looted and burned. The king, taken off in chains, blinded after being forced to watch while his children were fried to death and all but a remnant of the Israelites taken into captivity.
Where was God? Were the children of Israel not the chosen people? Was this not the Zion praised of in the psalms? Had God not made Jerusalem a glorious empire unraveled in the known world. This was paradise on earth, the land of milk and honey. So what happened?
Why would God turn his back on his beloved people? How could he be so cruel? How could he allow his children to be so abused?
At the time of the dedication of the temple Solomon prays a blessing for the temple and for Gods protection of his people. In this prayer we get a glimpse into the future of Israel. Solomon ask that if there should be a time when the people are taken into captivity that God would listen to their cries and show favor to his children.
If we have ears to hear we would benefit from the answer that God gave to Solomon in 2 Chronicles chapter seven. “ If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, Then will I hear from heaven, will forgive their sins and heal their lands.( 2 Chronicles 7:14)”
There is a time when we become so arrogant and full of ourselves that we no longer will abide with God, no longer will we bend the knee. There is a time when we become a law unto ourselves, a time where God has no choice but to allow us to reap the consequences of our actions. Even as he mourns for us as a parents grieves over a wayward child till they return. Return to your fist love, seek his face.
Over thirty years of their married life a farmer and his wife traced the route between their farm and the town where they took their crops to sell. Through the wood and over the mountainous terrain they drove their old pickup truck. On one of these trips the old farm wife said to her husband,” You know when we started these trips you and I were so close together that we could not even get a piece of paper between us.” “Look at us now, you are all the way over there behind the wheel and here I am all the way over here by this door.” Without even turning his head the farmer replied, “I never moved.”
Often we act as if God has left us, that he has left us and forsaken us. In reality it is us who have moved away from the Lord. We have chosen a path that does not include God at all and we are surprised when it turns out to be the wrong direction. All we have to do is turn around and we will realize the he is exactly where he has always been waiting for us.
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