Many years ago, my car broke down on California State Highway 37, just after I’d made the eastbound turn from Lakeville Road. If you know the area, you realize that stretch of highway is miles away from anything, the sole exception being what is now Infineon (then Sears Point) Raceway. The nearest city to the east is Vallejo; to the west, Novato; to the north, Petaluma; all are several miles distant.

In those pre-cellular days, the only solution to my dilemma was walking to the nearest pay phone. I ballparked the distances in my head and figured that Novato would make for the shortest hike — “short” being a relative term. I struck out westward on 37, and eventually reached a small shopping center where I found a phone and called for help.

When I returned later to collect my car, I discovered an ironic fact. Not far from the vehicle — perhaps 100 yards at most to the east — stood a former weigh station for trucks. Although the facility had long been out of use, there was still a pay phone in service on the site. I could have saved myself significant time — not to mention a walk of several miles in afternoon heat — had I only known it was there.

The moral of this story is that help for our difficulties is often closer than we think it is. My little roadside experience illustrates two ways that this is true.

First, we don’t pay enough attention to our source of help until we’re in dire straits. I had driven that stretch of Highway 37 dozens of times before that fateful day. Never had I noticed the abandoned weigh station, or the pay phone standing next to it in plain view of the road. Why not? I’d never needed a phone in that location before, so I wasn’t looking for one.

People do the same with God. They ignore Him abjectly until they find themselves in some desperate situation that compels them to cry, “Lord! Lord!” Then, all too often, it’s too late — witness the rich man who died and found himself in torment in the afterlife (Luke 16:19-31). Suddenly he cried out for relief, but his disregard for spiritual things in life had landed him in a place where there was no relief to be had. If only he, like the poor beggar Lazarus, had turned to God while there was still an opportunity for salvation!

Second, we don’t look thoroughly enough for help when we need it. We give up too easily. Had I only taken a few moments to survey my surroundings before I set out on my westward journey, I might have spotted the pay phone just a short distance up the road in the opposite direction. But I’d already convinced myself there was no help in that direction, so I didn’t bother to look.

People often give up too quickly on finding God. In fact, as Paul advised the Athenian philosophers, “He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27). In Jeremiah 23:23-24, God pronounces Himself “a God near at hand, and not a God afar off”; He asks, “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” God encourages us in His word to “seek the LORD while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near” (Isaiah 55:6), and assures us, “If you seek Him, He will be found by you” (1 Chronicles 28:9).

Many people spend the entirety of their lives unsuccessfully “searching” for God — by whatever measure they determine — when, in fact, He is not hiding from us. Quite the contrary: “The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth” (Psalm 145:18). But the answer, you see, is that we must call upon Him in truth — by His measure, and not our own. God will not come to us, nor accede to our demands concerning where we will meet Him. To extend the analogy, He will not “move the phone” closer to us; we must go where “the phone” is. We might be surprised to discover it’s not as far away as we suppose.

“Salvation is nearer than when we first believed,” wrote the apostle to the saints at Rome (Romans 13:11). So too is salvation nearer the lost souls of this world than they know. A look into God’s word will point them the way home.