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IN TOUCH WITH GOD   by Edward Heppenstall

 
Found by God JANUARY 23

GOD'S SEARCH FOR US—2

If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. Ps. 139:9, 10.

We cannot evade God's love. There is no way to do that. God wants our love. He is perfectly honest about it. He created us. He brought us forth into the world. We are His children. God does not give up on us.

Francis Thompson, in his poem "The Hound of Heaven," describes the man trying to run away from God:

"I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, clown the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him . . .
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after."

We may think that God hides His face from us. What we mean is that we have lost contact with Him. Because of our sinning and neglect of Him, we say that God is no longer there. He has gone back into the heavens, which are as brass. But it is false to suppose that God finds us when we are good and bows Himself out of our lives when we are not good. Granted that God hates sin and sin separates us from Him. But the choice is ours, not God's. God still seeks us. He still loves us.

"I have loved thee with an everlasting love" (Jer. 31:3). If we end up in eternal darkness it will be because we have shut God out even when His love shone in our eyes. He is the eternal Shepherd who misses the one lost sheep, the Shepherd who goes through the night of storm and peril to find us. There is still time for all of us. It is not too late. God never rests until He finds us and we find Him. This is what really matters. Christ came all the way from heaven to find us. That is God's way with us. He wants us back home now and for eternity.

"Mine is an unchanging love
Higher than the heights above,
Deeper than the depths beneath,
Free and faithful, strong as death."
                          —WILLIAM COWPER

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