"God didn’t give up on them. Even when they walked away from their commitment to God, God stayed true to them. Even when they exchanged God for something else, God stuck with them. Even when they lost their patience, lost their hope, and lost their faith, God stayed faithful to them. Even when they abandoned God, God refused to abandon them. That’s what the people just couldn’t see at the time: that God never left them. Even in the midst of this long period of silence, this season of directionless waiting, these weeks of feeling stuck in place and stranded in the desert, God had not left them alone."