You have been told, O mortal, what is good,
and what the LORD requires of you:
Only to do justice and to love goodness,
and to walk humbly with your God.
(Micah 6:8)
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I remain transfixed on that little passage of Scripture in Genesis right after the Fall of our first parents. Think about it: Adam and Eve had just upset the entire order of the Universe. They ushered decay into creation, death into the human race. They committed a mortal sin by deliberately rejecting God’s Word…
…And yet, we read that the Lord did not withdraw His presence! Yes, Adam and Eve lost the benefits of the Garden… but they didn’t lose the love and presence of their Creator. He actually goes strolling through the garden, looking for them, as they were hiding “from the presence of the Lord God” (Gen 3:9), and then calls to them:
Where are you? (Genesis 3:9)
How wonderful are those words! How incomprehensible! Because they continue to reverberate throughout the generations, down through the centuries, down through the tumultuous moments of human history, to you and me. Despite even our serious sins, the Lord is near, calling to us: Where are you?
God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
Is it not time, once and for all, to finally put to bed the notion of God leaving us, of abandoning us?
Where can I go from your spirit? From your presence, where can I flee?… If I say, “Surely darkness shall hide me, and night shall be my light”— darkness is not dark for you, and night shines as the day. (Psalm 139:7, 11-12)
Yes, even the darkness of our sin and folly does not drive away His love and presence.
If we are unfaithful, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. (2 Timothy 2:13)
It’s precisely our sinfulness and misery which draws Jesus near, for He came to “save His people from their sins”:[1]Matt 1:21
Be not afraid of your Savior, O sinful soul. I make the first move to come to you, for I know that by yourself you are unable to lift yourself to me… How dear your soul is to Me! I have inscribed your name upon My hand; you are engraved as a deep wound in My Heart. —Jesus to St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in My Soul, Diary, n. 1485
Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you. (Isaiah 49:15)
God will never leave you. Period. But do we leave Him?
Responding to God
It’s precisely because of our sin and fallen nature that we not only have difficulty remaining in His presence and thus hearing His Voice, but especially trusting it. And trusting God demands hard work, a real denial of our flesh and the intellectualizing that wants to be in control.
Whoever wishes to come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. (Matthew 16:24)
As you read in Searching for God, we will find Him if we “diligently” search for Him (Proverbs 8:17), “if you search after Him with all your heart and soul” (Deuteronomy 4:29). To trust God, to search after Him with all your “heart and soul” means learning what His Will is, and then doing it.
Again, many may feel that they have lost God’s presence, but not because they actually did, but because they stopped doing His will in even the little things. It’s not that God has left us in those moments, but that we have now invited restlessness and sadness to be our bedfellows.
And so Jesus gives us the sure key to not only finding Him again, but remaining in His peaceful presence:
If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love. (John 15:10)
Since “God is love”, to keep His commandments is the same thing as “remaining in His presence.” And with that, comes the spiritual fruits we all long for: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control — the fruit of the Holy Spirit.[2]Galatians 5:22-23 Adam and Eve didn’t lose God; they lost to one degree or another the fruits of the Holy Spirit through their disobedience. So too, when we stray from God’s commandments, we don’t lose His presence per se, but we do lose the benefits of true communion with Him.
This leads to sadness, melancholy, depression, despair — and then a hundred ways to medicate ourselves. Do we then interpret these emotions as God having abandoned us?
I think a great deal of our generation’s psychological problems would vanish if we simply obeyed the Word of God, the truth that sets us free.[3]John 8:32 For as Jesus said,
Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. (John 8:34)
We weren’t created for slavery but for spiritual freedom, which is why our consciences wreak havoc on our peace when we leave the orbit of God’s will. But just as the Sun is fixed in the sky and doesn’t flee the Earth during its storms, so too, Jesus the Son of God does not flee you in the tribulations and trials of your life. He will never leave you. Period.
So it’s never a matter of “losing Him”, but finding and choosing how to remain with Him:
Whoever has My commandments and observes them is the one who loves Me. And whoever loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him… Whoever loves Me will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our dwelling with him. (John 14:21, 23)
