Lay Hold of Him!

5 You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways। But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved?
6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
7 No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins.

Isaiah 64:5-7

When I was a boy the highest compliment I could receive was for someone to tell me that I reminded them of my father. I remember once when I was with a group of students in a meeting with the president of the college where I was a student and my father had been a student before me. The president called me “Collins” instead of Bill. Collins was my father’s name. I have no recollection of the substance of that meeting, but I will never forget that someone called me by my father’s name!

I know that my father was just a man like anyone else, and that I cannot put him in a lofty position above God, but God Himself designed the father-son relationship to reveal to us our relationship with Him. My father died more than twenty years ago now, but I remember him every day and I remember his ways. The things that he taught me still burn brightly in my mind. God gave him wisdom which he lovingly passed on to me.

Have we forgotten the ways of God? God does not change. His standards and His ways are perfect and need no adjustment. We do not need to keep an open mind about the things that God has spoken. When He comments on a situation there is no need for further discussion.

When I act like and think like my earthly father those who knew him can see him living in me after all these years. When I act like and think like my heavenly Father other people can see Him living in me.

My goal here on this earth is to live so that my Father will be seen living in me. Then I will be truly “striving to lay hold of Him.”