THE ROCK THAT HOLDS

Well hello there dear gist partner!

How are you doing today? It is my hope that you are doing well and that you continue to feel God’s presence with you. 

Welcome to today’s gist. 

I am done with Sharon Garlough’s ‘Shades of Light’ (you should read it by the way) and while I read the book, there was something else I saw that has stayed with me since then and I thought to share that also. Wren Crawford, around whom the story is written, had finally reached the point mentally where she couldn’t possibly hold on again and needed to check into a mental health facility. One day, she gets a visit from her Pastor, Hannah, and while they were speaking, she told Hannah how tired she was of holding on: she felt like she was losing it, every possible ‘it’ that there was, and God seemed so far away; she was trying her best to hold on to Him but she felt her grip slacking. The way she described it, she was at the edge of a cliff, hanging on barely to The Rock but the air and gravity were both working against her and causing her to lose her grasp of The Rock, who of course is God, and she was plumb tired of holding on. 

And therein, Hannah told her, lay the problem: Wren pictured herself as the one holding onto God. So Hannah told her a story of an incident with a new born baby that she had held: she had one hand around the baby, holding the baby from beneath; at some point, the baby wrapped her hand around one of Hannah’s fingers. Now, from the baby’s perspective, she was the one holding Hannah but in actual fact, the reason the baby hadn’t fallen to the ground was because of Hannah’s other hand that was holding her in place. And that’s the point Hannah made to Wren: it’s not your grip on God, it is His grip on you, especially when you’re too tired to cling. 

Those words have stayed with me for a week, I’ve had to remind myself of them very often, and I know they will stay with me forever –it is not me holding on to God, it is God holding me! Interestingly, I read this very shortly after I was telling God how tired I was of holding on and how much He seemed to be going out of my reach; but then, I wasn’t the One doing the holding at all! It was, and still is, God. The reason I haven’t fallen, the reason I haven’t yet given up, the reason I still stand –bruised and battered, scarred and scared– is because God holds me. If I were really the one doing the holding, I would definitely have fallen and remained there, but my sustenance comes from Someone other than myself and that is why I can still stand. 

And when Hannah prayed for her, Wren’s view shifted: suddenly the cliff she had been holding onto changed, and in its place was a Hand, this Hand first upright, slanted horizontally, until It formed a cradle, and It held her! She could see then, that she wasn’t holding, she was held! In Isaiah 46:4, the Lord says: “Even to your old age, I will be the same, and I will bear you up when you turn gray. I have made you, and I will carry you; I will sustain you and deliver you.” (BSB) God is saying to you here that first He is The One who made you, then you will can trust that He will never say you have outgrown your need for His care, He will never change in His loving manner toward you –He will carry you, He will sustain you and He will deliver you. 

Dear child of God, you don’t have to ‘hold on’, you can’t even do that, your Father carries you, He holds you so you can trust that you will not fall, He will sustain you, He will deliver you; allow Him love on you, allow God father you, allow your Father carry you! 

Whenever you are overwhelmed, like I’ve been lately, remind yourself that it is not of he that willeth or of he that runneth, but of the Lord that showeth mercy!(Romans9:16) And this merciful God, He carries you. Let that thought remain in your heart and let it help you trust God and rest in His arms that hold you. 

But if you’re here and you haven’t received Jesus into your heart consciously, your first course of action is to receive Jesus into your heart and become His child, there are privileges that you can only enjoy when you’ve submitted your life to God. You don’t have to wait or delay; today you can receive Jesus into your heart: simply come to Him in sincerity, confess your sins to Him, tell Him that you believe in His power to save you, ask Him into your heart and pledge to live life going forward with Him fully involved and according to His terms. 

May our hearts remember again to trust God. 

TUNES AND THOUGHTS: our song recommendation for this week is ‘Carry me’ by Pastor Chingtok Ishaku. My friend Victor introduced me to this song; he would sing this song every time he had to lead prayers in fellowship and the lyrics to the song have been the prayer of my heart for years now: every time I have no words to describe how I feel to God, I tell Him “I am broken and I’m wieghtless, open and I am yielded, carry me, Jesus carry me”. I pray that this song blesses your heart and reminds you to trust God to carry you through whatever it is that you are going through, He won’t drop you or let you fall!

YouTube: https://youtu.be/nFDer5y654o?si=_MLk77RRAQ3L1B3r 

Well that is that about that as far as that is concerned; our blogversary is on Sunday so see you then!

Love, 

Achenyo.