Jesus will never abandon you

It was dark outside, and I was riding in the back of a friend’s car. We had just gone on a scenic walk through a state park and were now heading back to campus after, ironically, eating at McDonald’s of all places. I had my earbuds in and happened to be talking with my younger sister on the phone. Little did I know what my friends were plotting from the front seats.

Abruptly and lurchingly, my friend pulled his car off to the side of the road. Confused, I let my sister go and asked what was going on. The car was out of fuel, they claimed. After a bit of back-and-forth conversation, they had me convinced. We were going to have to walk back to campus, and my friend would come back and get his car in the morning.

So we all got out, and I started walking ahead of the rest (it was dark outside, by the way). My friend claimed he forgot something in the car that he needed, and they both proceeded to go back to the car. I kept walking and thought nothing of it until only moments later, when instead of finding my friends walking alongside me, they drove past me in the car that was supposedly out of fuel. I had been duped.

Luckily, they didn’t actually leave me there, stranded, but I was the only one who didn’t find their little prank very funny. It was the second time that evening that they had pretended to leave me behind. Normally, I’m not so naïve, but my friends had my trust, so I fell for it, again.

There are a lot of people who earn our trust in our lives, whether it’s coworkers, friends, relatives, fellow Christians, and the list of vocations could go on. Many times, we go to these people for advice or encouragement. Often, these connections are important to us and are built on networks of commonality and trust.

Yet, like us, these people can all tend to fall short on their promises at least once during the duration of our relationships with them. Coworkers sometimes forget to return favors, friends sometimes cancel plans at the last minute, relatives sometimes aren’t there for us when we need them, and sometimes our fellow Christians forget to check in on us to make sure we’re okay. There are many ways we can fall short of our vocations, causing our networks of trust to fracture and crumble.

Relationships are more than just a one-way street. There’s only so much giving that one side can do without anything in return before it becomes too much. It takes the work of more than one individual to actually make things work out in the long run. Sometimes, we can refuse to care about others as we should, and oftentimes, it’s because selfishness comes so easily to us.

We are truly fallen creatures; there’s no doubt about that. It’s easy for us to become so absorbed in our own worlds that we forget we have obligations to other people, that is, to our neighbors. And while none of us can claim to be any better at it than anyone else can, part of me wishes we wouldn’t get so defensive, refusing to see our failures in this regard. Our failures to keep others’ trust. Our failures to stay by each other’s sides through every moment of storm and calm. Our failures to be the people that God truly wants us to be.

Ultimately, we tend to want to abandon what matters most for the things of this world. The list can go on: riches, entertainment, reputation, materialistic wants, travel, and many, many other desires. Yet not one of these things will follow us into eternity. The only things that will are our own souls and bodies, and the people around us. The people that God commands us to love. The people God places in our lives with the call that we ought love them more than ourselves. It is no easy task, and as we know, one that we constantly and consistently blunder and fail at.

That’s why it’s so crazy and radical when God chooses to befriend us instead of holding this all against us. That’s why it’s astonishing and almost unbelievable that he would decide to take our place and bestow his perfection on us. Jesus makes no demands. He just wants to love us and wants us to be his. He’s the one who demonstrates that type of greater love that he talks about in John 15:13 when he says, “No one has greater love than this: that someone lays down his life for his friends.” He sacrifices his life to make up for the countless times when you and I should have been the ones demonstrating this kind of sacrificial love. The kind of love that says, “you matter so much to me that I would die for you.”

We matter to Jesus, and he won’t let us go. He won’t leave you high and dry, as so many other people do. He embraces you as his dear child whom he marked in the waters of Baptism. He sustains your faith amidst life’s turbulence. He makes sure no evil powers can harm you or take you away from him. He’s the kind of shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine for the one wandering, straying sheep. The type of sheep that you and I are. He’s watching over you every second, of every hour, of every day of your life. He’s here in all the little moments. You can’t fathom or even imagine how much he holds you dear, nor can you comprehend how much you truly matter to him.

As Paul writes, “If God is for us, who can be against us? Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also graciously give us all things along with him?” (Ro 8:31–32).

And again, in the Old Testament, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid and do not be terrified before them, because the Lord your God is going with you. He will not abandon you and he will not forsake you” (Dt 31:6).

People in this life might walk away from you, but God will never walk away from you. He will never stop loving you and will never let you go. Paul writes even more in Romans about this deep connection and inseparable, unconditional love that God has for us.

“What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? Just as it is written:

For your sake we are being put to death all day long. We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, neither things present nor things to come, nor powerful forces, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ro 8:35–39).

Remember the friends in the story I told at the start? Jesus isn’t that type of friend. He won’t abuse your trust. He won’t trick you out of your relationship with him. He won’t leave you stranded on the side of a road in the dark. There is nothing that can separate us from him, because he loved us that much.

He loved us so much that he hung in pain and agony on the cross and shed his precious, innocent blood for you and for me. The omniscient God, in human fashion, knowing well his future suffering and pain, still didn’t let us down. He won us a victory that is more than enough. He loved us so much that even though we ran away from him, he decided that he couldn’t live without us. So he rescued us from all the mistakes we’ve made and keeps pursuing us daily.

Yes, Jesus truly won’t leave you high and dry. He doesn’t get tired of chasing after you. He doesn’t grow weary of redirecting you. He doesn’t give up when you run away from him. Nothing could petrify his heart of love that he demonstrates toward us, time and time again. He is truly the most perfect friend of all. Even if everyone else runs away from you, Jesus won’t be like the world, caught up in all its wants and desires, which will one day fade away. Jesus will never, ever, ever abandon you.