Seeing God

'Like an east wind I will scatter them
Before the enemy;
I will show them My back and not My face
In the day of their calamity.'"

Jeremiah 18:17

This verse is the culmination of God’s threatened judgement for the idolatry of Judah and Jerusalem begun in verse 11. It struck me when reading it recently that of all the judgements and punishments God declares against them (making their land a desolation, scattering them), the final judgement is that He will turn His face from them. Of all the punishments that God can mete out, this is the most severe: to us off from Himself and hide His face from us.

It seems that the times that are most difficult for me, the burdens that are hardest to bear, are those that do not accompany a deep awareness of God’s presence. What a horror to think of a life without the comforting presence of God to cheer and to guide my family and me. It is a horror that will be experienced by many when, in the last day, Jesus will declare to them :'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.' – Matt. 7:23.

I am so grateful that though we often turn our backs on God, He never turns His back completely on us, that there is always room for repentance and restoration, until the final day. I am also thankful that He has promised to preserve us to the end until we will finally see Him face to face forever.