Cling
I’m learning to cling.
You might wonder how this could be a gift. I’d love to tell you.
We’ve been going through a situation over the past week where our trust in God is being tested. The future seems uncertain and even possibly bleak. But God.
But God has strengthened my heart with many reminders of His faithfulness this week. In multiple ways. In sweetly personal ways, that have at times, brought tears to my eyes. Somehow, this testing is sweet as He draws me closer to Himself.
I was reminded while reading the boys their Bible stories before bed that God controls the storm. He is the God who multiplied the loaves and fishes.
While reading Treasured: Knowing God by the Things He Keeps by Leigh McLeroy, I was confronted with the question: “Would [I] cling to what God has given, or would [I ] cling to God alone?” I felt God whispering this question into my very soul. And while pondering this question, my eyes drifted to the subtitle of the chapter, “The God Who Provides.” My eyes welled with tears.
Anne, who knew nothing of my situation, sent me a message by Mike Bullmore on Jeremiah 17:7-8 last week, which reminds me:
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose trust is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
I was reminded of a passage that I’d studied over the summer, now coming back to my mind with specific meaning and application for this season in my life:
“Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
GOD, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer’s;
he makes me tread on my high places.” – Habakkuk 3:17-19
All of these examples are tokens of God’s kindness to me. They pile onto my soul as sources of strength and trust. They are gifts of grace. And they remind me of the greatest gift of all. God Himself. I am learning to cling to God, alone.
“You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.” – Isaiah 26:3
Just my contribution to Tuesdays Unwrapped with Chatting at the Sky . . .
Danielle, as I was reading your blog, my Bible was sitting open to Psalm 139… it is a Psalm I read over and over again (I probably should blog about it). Verses 5-14 particularly speak to me. He hems me in — behind and before! What a comfort to know that! I think you are learning a lesson many Christians never learn… That God, alone, is enough. Stuff is never enough. Life never goes as we think it should (well, almost never
. Remember that “darkness is as light to {Him}. I will pray that God will be a present help to you! I see now how the Isaiah verse was speaking to you 
Blessings,
Melodye
While I do not know your situation I can relate with the process of learning to cling to God in all things that HE DOES PROVIDE for ALL of my needs. It’s easy to say that I do this when everything is “peachy keen” in a worldly sense but how much sweeter it is when my life sometimes feels as stable as the walls of Jericho.
Danielle, will be praying for you and Josh. I’m glad the book was able to encourage you in the midst of what you are facing.
You sweet girl…these are the lessons that are so hard to learn, but are the benefits and blessings of hard times.
I love that Habakkuk verse…and have been taught to subsitute my own things instead of the fig tree and fruit as I pray this back to the Lord.
Keep clinging and thanking in the midst. Wish I knew you to give you a hug.
Habakkuk 3:17-19 is one of my all-time favorite passages. When we can trust God in the dark, that is true trust.
Thanks for posting this!
Oh, how I know that urgent grasp at Him, at His unchangeableness, at His goodness, the heart-cry that aches out through tear-swollen throat without words, begging, holding, clinging… Praying His nearness for you today.
Thank you for sharing this.
)
It reminded me of what I considered my theme songs during Natalia’s first weeks. The lyrics to “The Voice of Truth” by Casting Crowns and “Blessed Be Your Name” always have a way of reorienting my hope and trust.
Praying for you this afternoon.
Praising God in the midst of a storm is the mark of true surrender.
Thank you all for your encouragement and prayers!
THANK YOU for this amazing post…interesting and helpful to me because the last 3 weeks have been the longest of my life…we find out at 2 pm today if my 21 yr old brother has cancer. Whatever your circumstances, I am praying for you. Here’s to a PhD for you and me in clinging to God.
Janice, I’ll be praying . . .
We are praying for you guys and full of faith in our God. We have found Him so faithful and have come to cherish the hard stuff of life for it has always been in those times that fellowship w/ God is ever so sweet. He is never more near to me than when I’m walking through hardship. Though I still don’t always practice it flawlessly, I do now better understand why God commands us to “count it all joy when we face trials of many kinds…” Praying that the “testing of your faith” will indeed produce not only perseverance, but many other fruits of the Spirit and an intimacy with God that cannot be matched by the blessing of any of His othher gifts!
I will be praying for you, Danielle.
thanks for this very encouraging reminder