6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way… ~ Isaiah 53:6a NKJV
My daughter has a Siberian Husky, and she is what we call an escape artist. If she finds even the smallest opening, she squeezes through it and off she goes, exploring. Now, she loves her family and her home, but for some reason, she loves to stray. Just wander off and explore like nobody’s business. We’ve spent countless hours looking and searching the neighborhood and the woods for that dog.
Sometimes she’s gone for a few hours before we find her, at other times she is gone for up to two days. Then someone on social media will contact my daughter and let her know that they have her dog. And when we drive over to that person’s home to get Venus, she is overjoyed to see my daughter. She comes bounding over, tail wagging, and something like a big smile on her face, if that is possible. But the thing is, she has never found her way back home. We always have to go find her. Thank God it rarely happens, but when it does, we have to go searching to find her.
You know, that is exactly how we are. The Scripture said, “We all like sheep have gone astray.” We are all prone to wander off the path following some dream, some excitement, some fantasy. Never meaning to stray, but straying we do, nonetheless. It’s not that we stop loving God. It’s not that we stop wanting to be in His Presence, but that we have this pull, a call of the wild, if you will. And if we are not careful, we will find ourselves on an unfamiliar path that leads us away from our Savior, and not toward Him, and we get lost and are unable to find our way back home to Him.
That’s why Jesus came, 2,000 years ago, to seek and to save that which was lost. He came to be bruised, for our iniquities, to have the chastisement of our peace placed upon Him, and to receive the stripes by which we are healed. With His own blood, He has given us a new and improved covenant. A covenant of love and peace and righteousness. He has given us the ability to live righteous and holy lives so that we need not stray ever again. For when we are tempted to stray from our God and our Savior, we echo the words of the Apostle Peter to remind ourselves, “Where would we go? For You alone, oh LORD Jesus, You alone have the words of life.”
There is nowhere we can go, and no one that we can run to, but Jesus, and Jesus alone, for it is He who has the words of life and Him alone.
Father, strengthen us and encourage our hearts today. Help us to remember and understand that it is Your Son, our LORD Jesus, who has the words of life. For in Him and in Him alone is the life and the light of men. Help us to run to that light and to remain in that light, in Jesus’ Name I pray, amen.