Circuit rider

 Isaiah 55:1-9: Return to the Lord and he will have mercy. But I noticed verse 6: Seek the Lord while he may be found, call on him while he is near.There are hints in the Bible that God isn't around all the time. Like the 400 years the Israelites spent in Egypt. And the 400 years between the end of  the Old Testament and when Jesus showed up. Then 300 years until Constantine, and the Great Schism in 1000 and St. Francis in 1200, the Reformation in 1500, the Great Awakening in the 1700s, Vatican II in the 1960s and the church expanding now in Africa and Latin America. Is God a cosmic circuit riding preacher? It seems like sometimes he is absent from the scene.

Luke 13:1-9: Jesus says repent or perish. And then the parable of the barren fig tree. The owner says, it's been 3 years since it gave fruit, cut it down. The gardener says give it one more year. So Jesus is saying there is time to change but not forever.