Jeremiah 32:40
And I will make an everlasting
covenant with them, promising never again to desert them but only to do
them good. I will put a desire into their hearts to worship me, and they
shall never leave me.
The
Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by
permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois
60188. All rights reserved.
When I was seven, my dad
worked on a construction crew in southeast Arkansas. He would get up
before daylight on Monday mornings and drive several hours to be at work
on time…then on Friday evenings, he would drive home for the weekend.
Sometimes we visited him on the weekends at the little house he rented
through the week. I absolutely HATED this. I know that this a strong
word to use, but it’s the truth! I cried every Sunday night when he
tucked me into bed, knowing that he would be gone when I woke up the
next morning. I begged him to stay home with us…and after several
months, Daddy did come home.
My dad tried to explain to me that
he needed this job…that he did this so that our family could have the
things we needed…and extras like the horse that I loved so much at my
grandparent’s farm. But when you are seven, the world does not seem
logical in the least…and this did not make a lick of sense to me. All I
knew was that my daddy was not there most of the time.
When I
was ten, my dad moved our family to Oklahoma for six months for another
construction job. The pay was good – and for the first time ever, my
mother didn’t have to work. But my sister, brother and I were
miserable. We missed our home in Arkansas – and our family (even though
family members or friends visited us all but maybe one or two of the
weekends of that six months). My then six-year-old brother was so
homesick that he was physically ill much of that time…and many nights,
he cried to go home. I know the struggle between staying “on
the road,” where my dad made a great wage, and going home to
lower-paying jobs must have been very hard for my parents. But in the
end, we did return home.
I tell you all of this to explain that the
sense of “abandonment” is powerful…whether it is a child who longs for
the comforts and security of the home he/she has known since birth...to
the boy whose parents are carted off to jail while DHS finds a suitable
“substitute family” until things can be ironed out…to a little girl
whose dad packs his things and leaves his family to start a new life
with another family – without so much as a backward glance…or the kid who
waits after school for a parent to pick him/her up – and nobody shows.
So
it is easy for me to understand the potential “fear” that God might
turn His back on us. You may not have ever been “abandoned” or
“deserted” per se, but if you have ever experienced any situation that
involved a profound loss (and now, I’ve probably covered everyone!), you
can better understand the deep-seated emptiness and pain that comes
from feeling like someone has left you.
HEAR THE GOOD NEWS…GOD
NEVER LEAVES US! He never goes off to work in another town or sends us
packing to a strange place away from our “family.” He never chooses
someone else over us or does anything to cause a family breakup. If you
are a child of God, you will NEVER be an orphan! You are never out of His sight! Given this knowledge,
why would you ever want to walk away from God – for even a minute?
The
God who would never abandon you wants to know that YOU would never do
the same to Him. Are you ready to make this commitment, once and for
all? Will this be the day that you do?
©2015 Debbie Robus
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