SOS

by Joyce Sykes
Published February 7, 2007

“I want you to live an SOS life before Me.”

I was somewhat startled as the Lord dropped this little statement into my heart several weeks ago at church. I had been looking at two of the posters hanging on the church wall, when this thought suddenly flew into my mind.

“SOS, what in the world do You mean, Lord? I know what SOS means in the natural but…”

Once more, my attention was drawn back to the two posters. Each year the denomination of the church I am attending, choose a word for their people to focus on. Imprinted on each poster was one word in very large print. One read ‘Seek’ and the other ‘Serve’. Every time I looked in the direction of the posters, I kept seeing the word “SOS” in my mind.

After service, I began asking the Lord what exactly He meant by His earlier statement.
“I want you to live an SOS life before Me.” As I mediated on Him, I began to realize that as His children, each of us are called to live an SOS life before the Lord. We lack the ability to walk through our life on our own. We stumble and fall, fail and sin consistently each day. No one has the strength to live a holy life without the Lord. We need to and must call out to the One who called us by His name and saved us by His grace.

We need help, a help that is beyond anything within us. It is only through the precious blood of Jesus that we obtain that help. However, as I mediated upon what the Lord was revealing to me, I knew that there was so much more that He wanted me show me.

Deut. 4:29-31 But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the LORD your God and obey His voice (for the LORD your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them. (New KJV)

‘If you seek the Lord with all your heart and all your soul’; if is the operative word here. If implies that it is our responsibility to seek the Lord, He is always with us, but often we turn and allow ourselves to become busy in other directions. On the other hand, we become complacent in our walk with Him. In the verses just prior to this, the Israelites had forgotten the covenant they had made with the Lord. As they drifted further apart from Him and His ways, disaster came. They were scattered as other nations came against them. Judgment had come.

As always when hardships came into their life, the Israelites remember the goodness of the Father’s house and once more began seeking out the Lord. Then they sought Him with everything within, they found the God they had left behind. He had never left them, but through rebellion, indifference or just plain laziness they had turned and followed after other things, idols of less importance. The hardships that came as a result of their disobedience revealed the distance between them and the God they promised to serve. Facing the reality of sin in their heart, they turned back to the Lord God Jehovah.

In the days since the Lord first dropped His challenge into my heart, I have spent time before Him, digging into His word and mediating on this thought. My heart’s desire is to live a SOS life before Him. As I seek the Lord with a whole heart, He will instruct me. At this point, I must obey Him and in my obedience, I serve Him.

There should be no greater joy in our walk with the Lord. So I ask you the same question. Are you living an SOS life before the Lord?

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