Nehemiah 9:18 – “Yes, when they had made them a molten calf, and said, This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt – yet you in your manifold mercies didn’t forsake them in the wilderness”
God is not a human. It sounds simple enough, but the way he deals with people is very different to the way that we do.
This verse is a great example of that. Human wisdom would say ‘leave them in the desert to perish for their sin’. But even though the Israelites had experienced the very glory and reality of God, and then gone and made a golden calf saying “This is our God” – the Lord did not leave them.
In the midst of their sin, the cloud by day and fire by night remained – to show them light, and the way in which they should go.
2 Timothy 2:13 puts this well, saying ‘If we are faithless, he remains faithful – he can’t deny himself’. It’s His kindness in spite of our hardness and sinfulness that brings us back to repentance.
If you feel like you’ve fallen away from God – the solution is simple! Repent, and turn back to God! He hasn’t given up on you!