In the Arms of Love
Deuteronomy 33:27
“The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”
My wife is 33 weeks pregnant with our fourth child, a precious baby girl, and we’re anxiously awaiting her arrival in seven weeks. I’m refreshing my memory on the art of swaddle-folding, an art I mastered five years ago when Skye was a newborn, as well as mentally preparing for the beautiful but difficult toll that those first six months of infancy will take on us. I’m praying already for Christlike stamina and Christlike patience and Christlike compassion, the likes of which I’ve sorely lacked in the past and rigorously wish to pursue for the present and future. I realize that this little soul in my wife’s womb, created in the image of God, and fashioned for a special purpose, will need more over the next few years than her momma’s milk and regular diaper changes and total provision; she’ll need to be swaddled and cradled and held in my arms.
Deuteronomy 33:27 suddenly reminds me that I, too, am an infant in relation to my heavenly Father. Whether I eat or sleep, whether I work or play, whether I fuss in fury or sing in joy, whether I crawl away from my Father or clamor for Him, I am always, in all things, every moment of my day, being swaddled and cradled against His chest, next to His heartbeat, upheld by His comforting arms. Yet, even as I write all that, my pride shutters a little. Doesn’t yours? Our sophisticated souls don’t like admitting such helplessness. After all, look at the church now! We’ve had Nicaean Councils and Reformations and Renaissances and Enlightenments and Puritan revolutions, right?! We’re 2,000 years old! We’re adults at this stage. All that stuff with Moses and the Promised Land and conquests—we’re so far past that. We don’t need swaddling anymore! In fact, it’s time we get the keys to the caravan!
Friend, even after generations of progressive revelation and spiritual advancement, what are we in relation to our eternal Father? Just kids. Little kids. Really little kids! Kids so small and so helpless that we need an arm around us at all times lest we fall headlong. Oh, praise the LORD for the toll He’s taken on Himself, in His arms of love, to bear us up!