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”Hold my hand all the way...”
Parents often teach their children how to ride a bike by holding on to the back of the bike while the children peddle. When the children get to the point they can maintain their balance on their own, the parents quit holding the bike. There is no need for parents to keep holding on when the children can do it on their own.
Friday night a phrase in a song that I have sung many times caught my attention more than other times. It says, “Hold my hand all the way, every hour, every day, from here to the great unknown. Take my hand; let me stand where no one stands alone.” (“Where No One Stands Alone”). For how long do we need God to hold our hand? At what point can He let go and we be just fine without Him? Unlike a child riding a bike, we never get to the point that we can do it on our own.
The book of Psalms expresses this ongoing need for God’s hand. “The steps of a man are established by the LORD, and He delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, because the LORD is the One who holds his hand.” (37:23-24). “I have set the LORD continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. …Nevertheless I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand.” (16:8; 73:23). “If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me.” (139:9-10).
Jesus condemned the church in Laodicea “because you say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, ” (Rev. 3:17). They did not realize it, but they still needed God to hold their hand. “I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.” (:18).
Do you think you are ready to make it on your own, without the Lord’s hand to guide and direct and stabilize you? Think again. You will never mature to that point. None of us will. We will always need the Lord to hold our hand, “all the way, every hour, every day.”
