Don’t you love the way the Lord gives us different pictures so you and I can relate to Him? The Lord holds us close to His heart. We immediately build a picture of what that means. We think of a special relationship, someone who is really close to us. Something like a parent-child relationship.
We know what that is like. Most of us can’t remember our first day at school. There’s usually someone sobbing his little heart out because he wants mum. But mum has to go. She hates to leave, but she needs to. Her heart feels the pain of her child as she drives out of the parking lot. All day she holds her little boy close to her heart, wondering how he is doing.
Or the first time you got your driving license. You have no idea what goes on in a parents’ heart when you proudly stick up the red and white P plate, ease your way out onto the street and drive off around the corner. That first solo drive feels strange to you, but your parents are holding you in their heart, they tend to be a bit on edge until you return home safely.
However, there is an important difference. The Lord keeps you in His heart… He puts you there in the first place. We read that the Lord exalted the strength of His people… in the context of the psalm this refers to His work in establishing His covenant with them; Israel. And as that covenant unfolds and becomes clearer, we understand what this means for us; which we are allowed to confess in Lord’s Day 1 as the complete summary of our life.
The Lord holds us close in his heart because we belong with body and soul to our faithful saviour Jesus Christ, who has bought us with His precious, precious blood. I don’t belong to me… I belong to someone else!
The Lord keeps us close in His heart in preserving us in such a way that all things work together for our salvation. Everything that we need to deal with in our life is given for a reason. And what’s more, He makes us heartily willing and ready to live for Him as we wait for his upward call.
Will we then not Praise the Lord? Indeed we can do nothing but praise Him!
With Christian Greetings,
M Plug, Principal