Those who split hairs in order to prove a point can be irritating. God made me to be a “headline” thinker and I often find myself surrounded with “fine print” thinkers. Sometimes we irritate each other because I want them to simplify and they want me to amplify. Interestingly, when both types of people operate under the power of God’s Spirit some pretty incredible teamwork can occur. Today, I’m going to don the hat of a fine-print-pilgrim and talk about the difference between holding on and being held.
I have little doubt that every single person reading this is being challenged today in some area of life. Some of you are worried, some are hurried and some feel buried by those challenges. If you have been endowed by God with some giftedness in the area of intellect and action you have likely been spending time spinning your wheels in a desire to fix your current dilemma. Fixes don’t come easily these days in my own world, probably not in your world either. When testings, trials, challenges or attacks intrude into our private paradises we begin to respond. Often the response yields no result so then we begin to react. When reactions also fail to produce the desired outcome we begin to recoil until we are tempted to ultimately resign. People see our downcast countenance and say, “Thine face appeareth as such a one who hath partaken of bushels of lemons.” Or, in modern tongue, “Yo, dude, you look so sad that you might want to send yourself some flowers.” Our response in those times to the unyielding reality of our lives might very well be, “Tough days, indeed. I’m just holding on.”
Just holding on…how’s that workin’ for you?
Someone told me recently that their favorite definition of faith was “a simple refusal to panic”. The Apostle Paul might want us to go a little further with that definition but it illustrates the point that some of us are stoic in our faith. May I suggest something? Life sometimes is panic-worthy. Cancer diagnosis. Pregnant teenage daughter. Armed thug approaching with a handgun. Two years before retirement a smug manager twenty years younger than you tells you that the company has to let you go. Your spouse walks in and says that he/she is over it all and will be filing for divorce. I appreciate your counsel to just hold on but my knees are giving out, my head is swimming and my palms are sweating if news like that ever finds me. Holding on assumes strength…what if the latest sortie of attacks just sent you sprawling against a big wall and you don’t have any more strength? Holding on? Sounds spiritual but your ability to do so isn’t guaranteed to last longer than what is intimidating you. That’s why I’m learning to embrace option #2 – Being held.
I love to hold my kids. I’m doing it as often as possible because I’m a runt and they will both be bigger than me by the time they are fifteen. I like to kiss their faces and hold their hands. Alicia gives me hugs but is beyond the crawling up in my lap years. Landon will still crawl into my lap now and then and…except he supplements the lap crawl with a host of improvised karate chops to the groin and/or Adam’s apple. Regardless, my precious children bring me delight when I’m blessed to hold them in my arms. Most parents have carried the sick or fatigued child in their arms. Helpless, they lay there – sometimes unaware that we are transporting them from the couch to their bed. They don’t fight us in those moments. They don’t make demands. There are no interrogations. In moments like I’m describing there is only a precious yieldedness of a child to his father or mother. It’s not the same thing as them holding on to us. When they hold on to us it expresses FEAR…when they let us hold on to them it communicates TRUST.
“Be still and know that I am God.” – Psalm 46:10. Anybody besides me wrestle with that command? Command me to fight an enemy, preach the Word, sacrifice a Benjamin Franklin for a just cause…but please don’t ask me to be still and do nothing as I let God hold me. I’m not always good at that. Maybe you aren’t either. Hey…maybe that’s why God keeps putting stuff in our lives that cause us to repeatedly face the reality that He likes to hold us while we lay there still and trusting. Let’s consider that our frenzied movements might be prolonging the very thing we’re afraid of. Perhaps we’re not frenzied but we’re strangling God in some silly attempt to get our arms wrapped around Him so we will sense security. “Don’t move, God – I’ve got You! There we go, I’m holding on to the eternal God of Heaven in the precise way that brings me relief. God, be still and know that I am me.”
Sound irreverent? Then let’s stop doing it.
There’s probably only a handful that read this that are going to really get what I’m scribing. It may be a hair-split but I’m learning that this is an essential issue and I want the right side of that split hair. All of you do-ers out there might want to risk getting small, still, and painfully honest about your limitations. God didn’t make you to cling but, rather, to recline. You’re getting weary with holding on and, at the precise moment your final strength ebbs away, you are going to lose your presumed grip. When you do so, open your eyes and you will see that He caught you. At that point close back your eyes, yield to His omnipotent arms, and learn what it means to be held by God. He prefers it that way…you will learn to prefer it also.
Holding on versus being held: that is a hair worth splitting in my opinion.
Im still learning to be held rather than to hold on. I find it much more comfortting to be held. When Im being held I find my strength is renewed. Father in heaven give us all this power through your son Jesus Christ than we may be strengthened for your purpose. Amen.