The Lamb
Click below to listen to the reach:
We sat on a porch and reigned our focus in — three beautiful friends and myself shared our hearts and chose to look at HIS. There's nothing richer or more powerful than a person who will be bone-honest about challenges and yet choose always to encourage a look up rather than around. Corrie Ten Boom did it. Watchman Nee did it. The mentors that have impacted my life most profoundly did/do it. Jesus did it! He wept. He was amazed. He sweat drops of blood when the hours of Passion neared. He was bone-marrow-honest about challenges and yet he chose to look up.
Sitting on the porch together, one friend shared how she had talked with a young lady who recently was in a school play and in one scene she was to hold a live, baby lamb. The girl struggled as she held the lamb — it would not be still. Its 4 gangly legs went in 4 different directions, its head and neck flailed about in fear. She struggled. She had lines to deliver, but how could she remember a word with a struggling, bleating lamb squirming in her arms. Instinctively, she began holding it more tightly. Tucking its trembling legs inside her arms and pressing its beating heart firmly against her own... immediately.... it grew still.
The firmer and tighter her hold, the more peaceful the lamb became. If she loosened her grasp to give it more freedom, it bleated and flailed and foolishly tried to leap from her arms. The lamb needed to feel secure. It needed to be held — firmly. Why? Because it could not take care of itself. It knew it was vulnerable. It was afraid. Oh how it needed a gentle, strong, firm arm to hold it. Only by the confident strength of the one who held it, could it find security and peace.
I've been “holding” that lamb in my heart since that sweet porch time. Now, I share it with you. Can you see it yet? The deeper truth of this sharing?
We are that lamb. Our Father-God is the Good Shepherd. He wants to hold us. He even waits to hold us. His arm is strong and kind, firm and sure. He knows what will harm us; He knows we can't bear the fall. So He hopes we will steady ourselves and feel His heart beat beside our own. He will hold us close. Heartbeat beside heartbeat.
But our humanness compels us to squirm. Our logic tells us to push back against His grasp... to jump from His arms and go where we want to go. To run and play and insist on our own way. If we get into trouble or find ourselves stranded in life, we'll call out to the Shepherd (maybe). But haven't we missed the rhythm of His heartbeat that would have actually kept us in a place of “whatever is true and noble and excellent and praiseworthy”?
So like the prodigal son, we resist the care of being held and find ourselves eating pods in a pigsty. We miss so much when we squirm from His arms and run from His care. Being held securely is what our soul longs for isn't it? We see it in newborn babies wrapped or swaddled in a blanket. Remove the swaddling wrap and what will the babe do? Its arms and legs will reach and flail in the startle reflex. A loud noise can cause it as well, but simply unswaddling a baby's arms and legs can bring about the sense of vulnerable insecurity. What can we learn about ourselves in this startled baby and squirming lamb?
We were designed to be held. Our Father placed in us a desire to feel secure and cared for. He knew that He would be willing to satisfy that need in about a million different ways... and He h-o-p-e-d we would allow Him to hold us. Close. To His heart. Imagine if your heartbeat could become so familiar with the Shepherd's heartbeat so that two different beats were no longer distinguishable... and only one stronger heartbeat could be heard. There's poetry in that sort of life-choice.
To not strain against the arms of the Good Shepherd. But instead to settle into the secure beat of the Father's heart beside our own. Lambs that stray far from the Shepherd's care are always, always, always devoured by sharp teeth or pulled into deep ravines. We hurt when we hear of their struggles and demise. But we... we have a choice, always. When the strife of the world makes the rhythm of our heart struggle and ache — stutter and weaken — our Shepherd-God reaches for us with the crook of His arm positioned closest to His great heart.
Our hearts can beat strongest,
when held close to His.
He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads...
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?
Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?
Isaiah 40:11-12
We are invited to be held close beside the heart of the ONE who measured the waters and marked off the heavens with His hand. The ONE who held the dust of the earth in a basket and weighs the mountains and hills on scales and balances.
WE ARE HELD.
