Week Thirty-Three - Prone to Wander

Number 15:39 reads, "Remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring."

That's an awfully stark warning, isn't it? It makes me question, how many times must the Lord remind us not to "learn the way of the heathen" (Jeremiah 10:2) and that "the way of the transgressor is hard" (Proverbs 13:15)? How can we so easily forget the Lord's benefits and blessings? Why is the allure of the world so powerful? Why are we such forgetful learners and prone so easily to wander away?

In his book, Glory Hunger, J.R. Vassar wrote, "Man is looking for the glory he had in the garden. Thinking any glory will do, he fails to see the glory in Christ applied to his life." Is this why we drift? Because we are looking for our own glory instead of God's? Are we so easily duped into seeking our own hearts and chasing after everything we see that we fail to understand or consider the consequences? Do we discount God's commandments and replace them with our own?

Henry Blackaby broached a similar thought as he wrote of God's relentless love. Using Hosea and his wife, Gomer, as an example, he noted that though she was totally unfaithful, God sent Hosea to buy her back.

Blackaby says, "God's message is clear: when we reject Him and turn our devotion elsewhere, our rejection carries the same pain as an adulterous betrayal. But His love follows us to the depth of our sinfulness until He has reclaimed us. He continues to pursue us." We are His child, and He will not abandon us, even to ourselves.

And can't we be so thankful for that! Grateful that in all our ignorance and half-hearted devotion, we have a God who has not surrendered His beloved and still seeks to draw us back. He still calls, knocks, and waits, ready to forgive.

O Lord, I may not go out to purposely seek the world, but I know a bit about my own heart. It is prone to wander. Like the songwriter wrote, "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, oh, take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above."

Thank you, Lord, for the reminders of your love, the promises of the Word, and Your unfailing love that pursues me still.