This summer Dave and I met a very nice couple from the Phoenix area. They camped at our campground for two weeks. They are avid hikers. Their energy is something to be envied.
The first night we met them, it was close to dusk. They stopped to talk and ask us about some hiking trails in the area. That day they had been out on a trail, a long loop, around the lake and back woods. They admitted that they had taken the wrong fork and instead of being a 6 mile hike as they had planned, they ended up hiking almost 16 miles.
Wow!
They said they had seen some of the most beautiful country and were glad that they had that experience.
I can’t say that has always been the case for me. Life has taken me down some trails I didn’t expect or want. However, the thing that has always been true is I have never been alone. Even the times I was off doing my own thing, not asking the Father for His direction or His purpose, He never left me alone and He won’t abandon you either.
Case in point: Remember Jonah? In complete and utterance disobedience, he ran from God. God told him to go to Nineveh and preach. Jonah went to the docks and got on a ship headed to Tarshish, in the opposite direction. He was running from the Lord. Even in that, God didn’t abandon Him.
“I had sunk down below the underwater mountains; I knew that forever, I would be a prisoner there. But, you, Lord God, rescued me from that pit. 7 When my life was slipping away, I remembered you—in your holy temple you heard my prayer.” Jonah 2:6-7 CEV
The Father doesn’t approve of our disobedience but He won’t disown or abandon His children. For that we should be extremely grateful.
“What can we say about all this? If God is on our side, can anyone be against us? 32 God did not keep back his own Son, but he gave him for us. If God did this, won’t he freely give us everything else? 33 If God says his chosen ones are acceptable to him, can anyone bring charges against them? 34 Or can anyone condemn them? No indeed! Christ died and was raised to life, and now he is at God’s right side,[a] speaking to him for us. 35 Can anything separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble, suffering, and hard times, or hunger and nakedness, or danger and death? 36 It is exactly as the Scriptures say,
“For you we face death all day long. We are like sheep on their way to be butchered.”
37 In everything we have won more than a victory because of Christ who loves us. 38 I am sure that nothing can separate us from God’s love—not life or death, not angels or spirits, not the present or the future, 39 and not powers above or powers below. Nothing in all creation can separate us from God’s love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord!
Have you been on the wrong trail? Do you feel you are out there all alone? Do what Jonah did and cry out to the Father for help; He is there and He will rescue you!
He will guide you back to the right trail. Nothing can separate us from the love of God!