Who can separate us

From today's reading: 31 If God is for us, who is against us?  33 It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8

Nothing can separate us from the love of God.  That's what this passage says.  But it is wrong.  We and we alone can separate ourselves from God's love.  We can choose to step away, to ignore God's presence.  If you feel like God is not there - if you feel like he is far away - then it is you yourself who has stepped out of his presence.  God is there.  He is always there.  

As God, as creator of all, he is present in all and there is nowhere you can go where God is not.  And as part of God's creation, God loves us dearly; even when we make mistakes, even when we make bad decisions, even when we step outside his plan for us and for our life.  Yes, even then God loves us, and he cries out to us to repent and to return to his path, to his love.