If I asked the average person to explain the horizon to me, I think most of us would say it’s where the earth meets the sky. But it isn’t. The horizon is where the earth appears to meet the sky.
That’s why the horizon isn’t somewhere we’ll eventually arrive. It’s always as far away as it has always been. So if I tell you that the answer you’ve been waiting for is on the horizon, there’s a sense of hopelessness in that because you’ll never actually be able to reach the horizon to get the answer.
Hopefully, you’re not confused by all of that because there really is a promise on the horizon, and a verse in Nehemiah explains to us why it can give us hope instead of what I just described. God’s people have been in exile, but God speaks this word to Nehemiah:
“… if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.” (Nehemiah 1:9 NIV, emphasis mine)
What a powerful promise God gives us in that verse! Not only does our returning initiate the return of the people that we love, but God is the One who gathers them and brings them back.
Many of us see the ruins in the lives of people who are living far from God. Many of us feel that the distance between us and them is too great for us to close. Maybe we can see them off in the distance — on the horizon — but the distance remains the same no matter how hard of long we run towards them.
But the key to reaching them is actually returning to God, and when we do that, He goes to the farthest horizon — to places you and I could never reach — and He brings them home.
The promise is on the horizon, and when we bow our lives before the One Who promised, He’ll bring the promise to us.
(Photo by Jordan Wozniak on Unsplash)
