Never Abandoned (Friday Devotional)

“There you will serve other gods made by human hands, objects of wood and stone that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. From there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and soul. In your distress, when all these things have happened to you in time to come, you will return to the Lord your God and heed him. Because the Lord your God is a merciful God, he will neither abandon you nor destroy you; he will not forget the covenant with your ancestors that he swore to them.”

- Deuteronomy 4:28-31

Sometimes one mistake is all it takes for you to give up on someone. For example, let’s say your hairdresser’s hand slips when she’s giving you a trim, and you wind up with a bob cut you didn’t ask for. Are you likely to go back to her? Or imagine if you were in a car accident and your insurance company failed to get you a dime, even though the accident wasn’t your fault.  Wouldn’t you go shopping for a new company? In each of these instances, most people would adopt a one-strike-and-you’re-out policy.

But now imagine a different scenario: your best friend forgets to pick you up from the airport, even though he promised he’d be there on time. As irritated as you’d be, you probably wouldn’t call him up to announce that the friendship was over effective immediately. His mistake would have consequences for how you treated each other down the line, it would affect the friendship, but it wouldn’t end it.

The reason, of course—and what separates your friend’s mistake from the other two—is that you have a close personal relationship with your friend. While your relationship with your hairdresser or insurance company is strictly business, your relationship with your friend is built upon shared experiences, common interests, and ultimately love for one another. Mistakes that might sever a contractual agreement or a business arrangement don’t end a friendship—not because the sin as any less severe, but because the relationship is that much stronger.

In Deuteronomy, Moses reminds God’s people of the law which has been given to them and the consequences for breaking it, but he also says something instructive about the character of God—even though God knows His people will repeatedly turn away from Him, He is prepared nevertheless to mercifully welcome them back when they repent; He refuses to abandon His children or forget His covenant. His mercy is not dependent on the severity of sins, but on whether the sinner is in relationship with Him.

Sometimes we cannot help but wonder if God isn’t scoring us according to our sins, tracking our worst offenses and comparing our faithlessness to that of other sinners. Our darkest fear is that we might finally step over some invisible line, that a white lie or a lustful thought might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and causes God to give up on our sanctification. When that fear grips you, remember that God sent Jesus not to condemn you for your sins, but to save you from them—what He wants is not to see you beaten down by fear, but lifted up by grace. No sin is a match for God’s grace, and no sinner too flawed to be saved. For in the end, what matters most is not what you’ve done, but who you’ve loved.