I love watching Aviya grow and change.  Having a baby sister has been an amazing experience for me.  It won’t be many more months and she’ll be eager to try walking.  As I thought about this, something else occurred to me: as she learns to walk, there will always be hands to hold and steady her, and when she falls, there will always be hands to wipe away her tears and put her on her feet again.  The more I thought about it, the more I considered how it is the same way with God.  Whether we realize it or not, it’s the truth: there are Hands always ready and waiting to hold us and soothe us.  Sometimes we are so afraid of stumbling, of falling and getting hurt, that we never even try to go anywhere.

I was thinking then (more thinking) of this line from a song: “What if the arms that catch you, catch you by surprise?  What if He’s more than enough?”  The point is that it is no real “what if” – He’s going to catch us, and He is more than enough.  He’s certainly big enough to catch us, and He promised He would, so why are we so very afraid?  Do we simply doubt that He will do it?  Doubt that, as far as we’ve fallen, He could lift us up again?  But that’s just the thing: it’s our doubts and fears that hold us back from freely trusting Him.  Unfettered trust is the kind of trust little children have; and when Jesus talks about the kingdom of heaven belonging to children, He is actually saying that we need to be child-like in our trust to have a real relationship with Him.  If you never stand and try to walk, you’ll never know just how strong His arms really are.

 “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” – Deut. 33:27