Have you ever had to find your way around in the dark? Even if you’re in a familiar place, when the electricity goes out, you still bump into things. When it’s pitch black, and you can’t see your hand in front of your face, you have to feel your way around so you don’t get hurt or break anything. I usually do the zombie walk. You know the one where your hands are out front of you. I’m hoping that I feel something familiar and can follow it to my destination. I know I’m not far away, but there are obstacles along my path.
This world is a dark place, but you and I have been called to be light like a city set on a hill that can’t be hidden. Even though this world is familiar to all of us who live on it, many are wandering around it in spiritual darkness. Some choose to stay where they are, while others are feeling their way around. It’s up to us to help them find their way to God. We are the ones who are to lead them to their destination. God is not far from any one of us.
That was Paul’s message to the Greeks. They were a people who were feeling around looking for God, but in the process created many gods. Paul saw their longing to find the one true God and spoke to them in Acts 17:27. He said, “His (God’s) purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him – though He is not far from any one of us” (NLT). Man has always had a need to look beyond himself to find God.
Even today, according to the Washington Post, more than 8 in 10 people worldwide worship a god. That’s because God created all of us with a desire to search beyond ourselves for significance and purpose. As Christians, we’ve got to step out of our churches, our homes and places of comfort to be the light God has called us to be so we can help people who are feeling their way around find God. He is not far from any of us. We just have to be willing to be used in helping the lost find Him.
Devotions by Chris Hendrix 