He is Always There

If we are faithless, he remains faithful. 2 Timothy 2:13

At the beginning of my last relapse, as I was considering taking the pills, I could feel God speaking. Do not do this. I wanted it though. I convinced myself I could indulge, ask forgiveness the next day, and return to God. So, I took the pills. The next day though, I couldn’t look at God. I’d shown my back to him, and it was just too painful to face him. I turned from God, and I began walking, running . . . straight back into my addiction.

Weeks later, as I felt my life begin to spiral out of control, I did ask God for help. As I once again found myself enslaved to the drug, unable to stop, I begged him to miraculously take away my appetite for the drugs. When he didn’t, I felt alone. Where are you God? Why don’t you help me? Don’t you care? It seemed God had abandoned me.

Later, in treatment, after my life had fallen apart, I finally turned around and found that God was right there. I’d walked a thousand miles away from him, feeling abandoned, but he had never left me. When I turned towards him, I found he was right with me all along. I’d simply been facing the wrong way. I’d been faithless, but he remained faithful. This was Paul’s message in today’s passage. In it, he said that though we may run from God, he doesn’t abandon us.

Many of us have found ourselves here. Yes, we believe in God, but we follow ourselves. In doing so, we turn our backs on him. Daily we should do whatever it takes to turn our faces towards him, but we’ve become so accustomed to a life of doing what we want that we may not even realize we’ve turned away from God. Then, in some life crisis, we try to turn to our faith and it feels like he’s not there. We cry out into the void – Where are you God? We feel he’s abandoned us, but it is we who’ve turned away from him, not him who’s turned from us. He is always faithful and he is always there.

We can run a thousand miles away from God and always find him right there if we will but turn around. It is that turning around though, that is so hard. Turning around means means repenting and doing whatever it takes to separate ourselves from those things that distract us from him. God never leaves us. God is always there. If we feel abandoned, it is we who’ve turned our backs on him. It is we who must turn around.