–St. Augustine

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 written by Debbie Allen

When my boys were just toddlers, their daily lunchtime also marked the end of their Daddy’s workday.  Every day, the jingling sound of his keys unlocking the front door had the same effect on the boys as a starter gun sounding-off at the beginning of a school track meet.  They took off running the instant their toes hit the ground; fingers still crusted with peanut butter , and lips smeared recklessly with grape jelly!  Jim peeked around the edge of the front door, always wearing a surprised look on his face at the sight and sound of so many little boys’ feet smacking the linoleum and bounding straight for him.  Both boys strained for all they were worth to see who could reach the finish line first!  If you haven’t already guessed it…Daddy was the finish line.

I stayed behind in the kitchen with baby brother, Trevor, perched on my hip.  He and I played the part of the roaring crowd in the background, cheering Mike and Brian on to the finish line.  By the time both boys reached Daddy, they wrapped their spaghetti-like arms around his legs while  burying twenty bare toes securely under the laces on top of Daddy’s work shoes. This was the moment they’d been  waiting for!  So there they stayed…clinging tightly, each one holding onto one of Daddy’s legs.  With every step Jim took, the boys laughed hilariously; moving when he moved and stopping when he stopped.  My heart always melted at the sight of all this boy commotion.  The joy of seeing my children interacting so freely with their Daddy (and Daddy with his boys) still touches me to this day.  This is what  love looks like when it flows freely and naturally.

I believe God had a picture much like this one in mind for His own children and how they are to interact with and love Him in this life.  Unfortunately, sin has distorted this picture.  Just look around you.  The Family unit lacks unity.  Marriage has become a relationship with no time to relate anymore; to each other, or to God.  Its evident we live in a cling-free world.  A world that promotes dryer sheets that cause even laundry to free-fall into a laundry basket, minus static.  Today’s cookware is Teflon-coated to ensure a stick-free cooking experience.  There is even a brand of motor oil designed to keep pistons in a car engine friction-free!  Our world capitalizes on making things stick-free…cling-free…and just-plain-easy for us!

God, on the other hand, capitalizes on making things more real to us…especially when it concerns His Love.  God’s greatest desire for His children is for them to have a heart devoted to loving, serving and obeying Him fully.  Not because we have to, but because we want to.  Wild horses couldn’t have held back my boys when they heard their Daddy coming through the front door every day at lunchtime. They tried to out-do each other in their passionate pursuit of him.  After all, when you love someone with all your heart and soul…it shows!

When it comes to loving our Heavenly Father in this life, He desires this same response from His own children, too. Looking back in the Old Testament,  Moses paints us  a vivid picture of this very idea  when he tells the Israelites standing at the threshold of the Promise Land, “Choose to love the Lord your God and to obey Him and to CLING to Him, for He is your life and length of days.”

That little word, CLING, means “to hold fast, to resist separation, to display extreme dependence.”

“Cling” is an action-word depicting how we are to walk with our Father, God.  It’s a beautiful word-picture of us (His children), running to Daddy, climbing up on His Feet, wrapping our spaghetti-arms around His pillar-like Legs…clinging so tightly to Him we sense His slightest movement!  This is unbridled Love…the kind of Love that flows freely when you love Someone with all your heart, all your mind and all your soul!

“I cling to You;Your right Hand holds me securely.” (Psalm 63:8)

HEART TRAPPINGS:  Where in your own life do you find evidence of this world’s  cling-free thinking/ lifestyles?  Perhaps in your own laundry basket? Under the hood of your car? Maybe your marriage relationship?  What about in your own heart?  When your Heavenly Father stands peeking around the door of your heart at you, what will be your response to His Presence?  Will you run…or hide?  Will you cleave…or leave?

 PRAYER:  Father, God, teach me what it is to truly cling to You .  When I hear you turning the key and see Your Face peeking around my heart’s door at me, may my pursuit towards You always be passionate.   As I climb upon Your Feet and slip my bare toes under Your sandal straps, strengthen me to hold fast; to cling to You so tightly that Your slightest movement becomes mine too.  For only then will I begin to understand what it is to love You with all of my heart, all of my mind, and all of my soul!    May You always be my Finish-Line at the end of each day’s race.