Held secure
I have been trawling through old photos and found this one of my dad chatting with his great grandson. Both of them had a lot to say!
Joel looks so happy and secure and this verse came to mind –
“Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him for the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders”. (Deuteronomy 33:12)
I noticed recently that when I quietened down, I heard a little voice deep inside saying “I’m scared”. I think the traumas of the last decade - sudden bereavement and a brush with cancer - has shaken my inner security. As I prayed about it, the Lord encouraged me to reply to “I’m scared” with the words, “I’m held”.
It amazes me watching the sons I held, holding their children in their arms. When the youngest baby in our clan cries, his dad holds him close to his shoulder and he often clutches his father’s chin until he falls asleep, deeply secure.
We live in a world where there is much to make us insecure – I don’t need to list it all. And we all face our own moments of turbulence. But here is a promise that we can rest secure, held by Almighty God.
I wonder if you dare take this promise for you?
Maybe it is hard to imagine yourself as a baby in loving arms but perhaps you can see yourself like John describes himself in John 13:23, leaning on Jesus’ shoulder. The Lord wants you that near, that secure.
This truly is for us. It is the promise at the start of John’s gospel when John writes, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known”. That little phrase translated in the NIV as “in the closest relationship” literally means being on the chest of the Father, on his lap, in his arms.
It is this intimacy, this security, that Jesus makes known to us. On our own, we could never climb onto the lap of the God who holds the stars, but wonderfully the promise of that when we give our lives to him, we are placed in Christ, who is always in this closest of relationships with the Father. Here we can rest, loved and secure.
