A Personal Relationship With God, adapting to change, admonition, Almighty God, change, choices, finding your way, God's omnipresence, God's Sovereignty, God's Will, God's Word, Grace, How God Loves Us, In the presence of God, managing change, Obedience, sanctification, trusting God

Walking Away From God

Posted on by Steve Sawyer in A Personal Relationship With God, adapting to change, admonition, Almighty God, change, choices, finding your way, God's omnipresence, God's Sovereignty, God's Will, God's Word, Grace, How God Loves Us, In the presence of God, managing change, Obedience, sanctification, trusting God

walking awayI don’t mean the “abandoning your faith” walking away. If I understand God’s Word and His promises to us, abandoning Him is impossible for us anyway.

I’m talking about the “I can handle this myself, I don’t need God” kind of walking away.

Our Vacation Bible School verse this past summer was Isaiah 30:21,

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” (NIV)

God showed me a few cool things about that verse as I continued to read it and meditate on it. Ray Stedman’s commentary added some insight that illuminated that verse even more.

Stedman pointed out that whomever the verse is addressing is actually walking away from the speaker,

“your ears will hear a voice behind you“

The other thing I learned was that no matter which direction we take, no matter where we go, we’ll still hear the voice. Even as we’re walking away from God, choosing to walk another way (the path of our own choosing) the voice never fades. We will still hear God’s voice behind us. Even though we choose to walk away (I call it backsliding), God remains close enough to whisper in our ear.

What is He saying? “I’ve chosen a beautiful path for you. I love you and want the best for you. You can never walk away from me far enough that you find yourself out of range of my voice. This path I have chosen for you and I’m pleading with you to walk in it.”

Though He has a right path for us, though His ways are higher than our ways, though He loves us without condition or regret, He still gives His children the will to choose to “walk in it” or walk away from Him.

We may choose to follow the wrong way for years, even decades. But His voice will always be there with His admonition to walk in the path He has chosen for us.

WOW! That’s why I believe we serve an awesome, loving God.

2 thoughts on “Walking Away From God”

  1. Good points, Steven. What if the voice behind is suggests that we have not walked away but that we are on the path of righteousness and He is our rear guard as in Isaiah 52:12 and Isaiah 58:8? Just posing the question, not challenging your perspective. Blessings, brother!

    Like

    Reply

    1. Excellent points, Kathryn. It’s a comforting thought to know that God goes before us and “the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.” That same idea of being with us always is a precious gem I get as well when I read Psalm 139. Thank you so much for sharing.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.