Distant God

 

At prayer meeting the other day a newcomer, a middle aged man we’d never met before, said he was about to celebrate his 27th Wedding Anniversary. We all congratulated him.

He said like all marriages, his had its ups and downs, including arguments and silent treatments, but overall it was OK. For their 25th Anniversary he took his wife to Paris. He said the last two years were the happiest of his marriage.

“How will you celebrate your 27th?” he was asked.

“I’m returning to Paris to bring the wife back!”

Absence makes the heart grow fonder – they say. Or - out of sight out of mind.

It all depends on your point of view.

Sometimes, wrongly, we feel God has ignored us. He is not listening. Abandoned us even. So we give Him the silent treatment. Stop praying. Stop going to church. And eventually we may drift away. We become distant. Out of sight, and out of prayer, is out of mind too.

If only we stop and think. When we feel distanced from God it is only because we have moved away. He has not left us. He is always there. Ready to welcome us back in His arms with love and forgiveness.
 
I will be with you always, to the end of the age. Matthew 28:20.