“Will God ever leave me?”
That’s a question that many Christians struggle with.
“I’m not such a good Christian. I fail so many times. Will God ever give up on me?”
Or, “I really messed up this time. I went my own way, walked away from God, and really messed up my life. God can’t possibly take me back, can he?”
But as I look at this passage, I think we find the answer to that question.
He warned the Israelites what would happen if they turned their backs on him and started worshiping other gods.
He warned that they would be exiled out of the land that God had given them, and he would give them over to the worship of “gods” who couldn’t hear, eat, or smell.
In doing so, he would show them how powerless these gods were to help the Israelites in their time of distress.
But then he said,
But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.
When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him.
For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors, which he confirmed to them by oath. (Deuteronomy 4:29-31)
In other words, as Paul wrote,
if we are faithless, [God] will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself. (2 Timothy 2:13)
God made a promise to the people of Israel that they would be his people and he would be their God. And though the people time and again turned their backs on God, he was always waiting for them to turn.
Whenever they did, he was always waiting for them with open arms.
God does the same with us. No matter how often we mess up, no matter how badly we’ve wrecked our lives, God is only waiting for us to seek him with all our heart and soul.
If we do, we will find him. All we have to do is turn to him.
Moment to Moment (Bible blog) 