Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you. Jeremiah 3:12. Return unto me; for I have redeemed thee. Isaiah 44:22. The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9.
Where is the pious man who has not often turned away from the Lord and lost sight of His countenance? Yet, blessed are you even though you often turn away from Him if only you return at once to Him. Blessed are you even though you had forgotten Him a hundred times during the day, if only you seek His face a hundred times again. But if you remain away and continue in your turning away from the Lord, and in forgetting Him, the result will be a fall, a complete falling away from the Lord, a separation between you and Him. The heart loses courage to return unto Him even if it still were willing. It thinks, "He will no longer receive me; He will cause His anger to fall upon me; He has forsaken me. " But these thoughts are false; for it is written otherwise in His Word than in your backslidden heart. He calls you. He wants backslidden Israel to return to Him. He is not willing that any soul, not even the apostate, should perish, but desires that it should be saved. Oh, that all might return, who more or less have turned away from the Lord, who formerly was so near and so good to them! Oh, that all might return who have lost sight of Him from their heart!
Oh, that they all might return unto Him! How gladly would He again turn His kind face to them and let Himself be found of them!
I cannot live without Thy light,
Cast out and banished from Thy sight;
Thy holy joys, my God, restore,
And guard me that I fall no more.