Return

Word of the Day: Return

Verse of the Day: “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭55:6-8‬

Such a strong set of verses. One of my favorite parts is “Return unto the Lord” - this should remind us daily that we should return to God when we stray or start to distance ourselves. 

“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.” The use of these few words is so specific in the Bible. Here it says “Let the wicked forsake his way” not “his ways” - there is only one way when we turn away from God. And when we are not righteous we need to get right. 

These words talk about our way and our thoughts - what many sins are in our minds for sure.  It speaks of turning from our way and our thoughts and returning to God who will “abundantly pardon”. How amazing is that?! As often as we continue to sin in our own way, and in our thoughts, God will always pardon us as long as we return to Him. 

Too often we try and impose our will. Too often we try to do things our way, when our way is not His way. 

Our way starts to distance us from our fellowship with God. And once we start to distance ourselves it gets harder to return. We start showing up less at church, reading our bible less and praying less. 

I’ve said it before, if you take the good out, the bad comes in. If you aren’t doing the good, you’re doing the bad. 

The further you walk away, the longer walk it is back. You don’t realize it until you stop and look and see how far you’ve gotten. That was me for sure. 

There are so many examples in the Bible of people, or groups or nations walking away or turning from God - and it didn’t go well. 

It’s hard to turn to God when we feel he’s let us down. We get complacent and we want things our way. We let life get in the way. We always want something. It is so hard for so many of us to be still. To want nothing. To stop depending on ourselves for everything. To rely on God. For such a long time I struggled with this and at times, I still do. I am learning to return to God daily and to keep my walk with Him. 

We will sin and we will stray, this is sure. But we can always forsake our sins and return to God because he is always near. God will always give mercy as long as we stay in His will and we don’t walk away from Him. 

Stay in His word, Go to Church and Pray to God.