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The Nasty Old So-and-So

             Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near. (Isaiah 55:6)

 

This is one of the ideas that is difficult for me. God is omnipresent. He is everywhere, all the time. This means that He can’t be far. Yes, I know. Sometimes it feels as if He’s on the other side of the universe, with His back turned, with headphones on and playing loud music. The “dark night of the soul” exists. I’d think that’s a case of perception vs reality were it not for verses like todays. And maybe it’s still perception vs reality.

Some folks say things like, “If God feels far away, it’s not God who moved.” But I’m not sure that movement away from God is the problem either. At least not exactly. It’s not that God’s at location A and you’ve gone off to location Z, even if it feels like it. And in Exodus, it’s said sometimes that God hardened Pharoah’s heart, sometimes that the Pharoah hardened his heart. This seems to indicate that there are times when God does something to create “distance” and times when we do.

As I’ve considered this through the day, one of the ideas that came to mind is that near and far are sometimes misleading. I could be standing one foot away from you, but to get to you, I might have to walk to the other end of the building where there’s a door, then walk back along the outside of the building to get where you are. So, were you one foot away, or maybe fifty or a hundred feet away? And suppose that God put some things between you and Himself, and you put some things between Him and yourself. Neither of you may have moved, but all of the things create a lot of distance because each must be handled in some way. Instead of just going to the other end of the building, you may have to navigate a large maze, so to speak.

So, seeking God while He may be found and calling Him while He is near may have more to do with what we put between ourselves and God. It’s always easier to call on someone with whom one has a good relationship. When you’ve distanced yourself relationally from that nasty old so-and-so down the street, it’s hard to call on him, and he may not answer because we’re the nasty old so-and-so up the street. But we have no problem seeking  or calling on the good friend down the street.

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