In The Father’s Arms

My eyes had been glued for a while to the little boy in the row ahead of me. He must have been about a year old. Fussy on his mother’s lap, I could see the parental exchange.

“Should I take him out?” she mouthed to her husband. 

The church was packed that morning, with few empty seats, except one in between them.

When they stood for a worship song, the dad reached over and unhooked him from the mother and swung him up into his arms. 

“Let me try.”

And perhaps it was that nap time of day, or the security of those strong arms, but their child settled immediately with one thumb in his mouth while the other little hand reached behind his father’s neck.

His little fingers caressed the nape of daddy’s neck. While a deep voice sang, the boys pudgy fingers twirled at the soft fuzzy edge of hair at the back of daddy’s head, until mesmerized little eyelids drooped and finally closed.

Dad and Mom gazed at each other nodding, confirming he slept. And then, they just gazed in contentment. Mom and Dad, onlookers to a pint sized miracle. Their pride and contentment was sweet to see.

Most of us can’t remember those first years in our lives when our parents wrapped us in their arms and carried us about like the child in front of me in church. Strong arms protected us, holding our bodies like warm shields, a shelter against harm. As if we could be safe forever.

It’s a place we long for no matter our age.

Moses felt like he had carried God’s people on his shoulders for decades. And in a sense he had, but sometimes, he slid into forgetting his true place. He began to feel like the responsibility was too great, the task too hard.   

But in the book of Deuteronomy, as Moses speaks to the people in a long summarizing sermon, it is so apparent who in fact carried all of them. And I find it a blessed reminder of who carries me. 

Moses, in his haste and irritation with the people displeased God.

Moses, in his haste and irritation with the people displeased God. And after all those years of journeying to the Promised Land, he was denied entrance. As he instructs the Israelites about their future into the home God had promised them, Moses says these poignant words;

The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place. (Deuteronomy 1:30-31 ESV)

God carried them the entire distance, “as a man carries his son.” 

When the sea towered above them, and they hurried through on dry land, God carried them.

When they were hungry and thirsty, without food or water, God carried them.

When cities greater and mightier sought to wipe them out, God carried them.

“The Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.” (Deuteronomy 1:30-31 ESV) Share on X

The past week I’ve had some dear loved ones on my heart. They are confronting perhaps the most difficult week of their lives, and I recognize as much as it is on my heart, I cannot carry them on my shoulders. God will carry them as He has carried me through my own raging seas and fearful confrontations. He will hold them in his arms like a father carries his son and bring them exactly to the place He has planned for them.

But in thinking of them, and worrying far too much, I recognize how often I squirm in the arms of my Father, because I want to journey my way, or take things into my own hands like Moses did. I resist laying my head to rest on His capable shoulders. 

I look back at times of my deepest sorrow, when life stared into the face of death, or when I felt I could not go on. 

I remember what felt impossible, like strong cities too great to conquer. Looking backward pain and joy intersected in inexplicable ways, both greater than any I’d known before. Deepest worship came through the purifying filter of suffering. Those valleys brought assurance of being carried in God’s arms.

God will be faithful through the tears of my loved ones too.  I will carry their grief in my anxious prayers, to the Father. I will remember the dad in the row ahead of me tenderly holding his little son. I will release them into the arms of their Father who loves them. He can carry them much better than I can. And I know He will.

Deepest worship sometimes comes through the purifying filter of suffering. Share on X

*Feature Photo by Philip Schroeder