Daily PresenceSample

Ok, trying to teach a brief devotional on verses from Revelation is just too much! In chapters 8-11 there is a lot happening and it doesn’t matter if you know what it stands for or not. There are beasts, pain, blood, crazy things happening, and all of it is baffling to most of us. But I noticed something that was written in the midst of all these images and events occurring. Chapter 9 v. 20 says yet some would not repent. Why? So much is happening that it seems to me that anyone who is still around would have to be saying to themselves, “Ok that’s it. I think we have made God angry and it’s time to make things right.” Even people who refused to accept that there is a God would surely have to see all of this and admit they were wrong about His existence, right? Were they so far gone that they could deny what was literally in front of them? I don’t know but then it also occurred to me that it was amazing that repentance was still on God’s heart. With all that was going on in that moment, still there was expressed emotion from the Lord that they would not repent. I often fall into the foolish category of thinking that God is ready to lay down the law when I mess up. Yet here is the Lord with judgment truly in hand and He says that in all this there were those who would not repent. He still was looking for people to repent and come to HIM through these horrific events. God has repeatedly talked about the desire to see us come to Him in repentance and He doesn’t depart from that desire even as the most tragic events in human history are about to play out. I wonder if there isn’t a note of wonder from John as he writes this…God tells him that people still won’t repent and I wonder if he thought the same thing I did, “you mean while all this is happening you still want them, and they still won’t see you?” It is mystifying and heartbreaking, yet so resoundingly true. How often do we choose to go on our road even when we know better? Yet still there is a loving God who wants everything in life to point us toward HIM.