“My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.” Psalm 63:8
This is our dog. Her name is Tess. And no, Tess is not normally allowed to use our dining room table as her own personal bed. She was mad at me. Yep, I committed the unthinkable – I went for a walk and didn’t take her with me! I know, some of you may call that spoiled. My children, (while they often profess that she is, in fact, spoiled), also have another name for it. They call her “Velcro Dog.”
A few days have gone by since I began to write this, and I am very sad to say that as I finish writing, our beloved Tess is no longer with us. She went peacefully home yesterday. And let me tell you, it’s been extremely difficult for me. As you could probably guess by now, she and I had a special bond. My husband told me he knew it was her time when I came home two different times in the same day and she didn’t get off the couch to greet me either time. She was like that. When I’d eat, she was there (and no, I did not feed her from the table). When I slept, she was there. And even when I would go into the bathroom, she was there. Now, while at times it was frustrating, I will admit that it felt good. Really good. I loved that feeling of being needed and loved. Now that she’s gone, I feel a deep emptiness.
But this experience has revealed a deeper truth to me than I would have had otherwise. The way I feel right now is the same way I believe God feels when we stray from Him. We may cling for a while, if we need something or things are going so well we promise to always trust Him, and then unconsciously we slip away. I wonder if He feels the same sadness and emptiness I’m feeling right now. He must. He considers us His children, and His friends.
Oswald Chambers, in his famous book My Utmost for His Highest, says in his August 4 devotional titled, The Brave Friendship of God, “The most important aspect of Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the surrounding influence and qualities produced by that relationship. That is all God asks us to give our attention to, and it is the one thing that is continually under attack.”
Does It Matter What We Think? We must remember to cling to God always. We need to be like Velcro. How else can we effectively cultivate the relationship our loving Father wants to have with us if we are, instead of Velcro, like the duct tape my husband found loosely hanging on our garage recently? The glue had all melted because of the summer heat and it was like liquid. I don’t know about you, but I am very reassured knowing that God put me here to do His work and not my own, because I will always mess it up without Him. He loves us so, and He wants to be like Velcro with us no matter what we’ve done or what we will do. What’s keeping you from sticking?
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