Held High, Held Close

It is a cold and snowy winter so far, and I am longing for the days of sun on my face and hope in my heart. His light warms me today as I remember a song I wrote many years ago called “Held High, Held Close” (some of the lyrics below). I wrote it while pondering the fact that God is HOLY and HE is LIGHT, in fact so bright that no man can look upon Him. Yet through Jesus, I can approach Him. I have been on that theme again in my thought life, as I am reading a book that keeps talking about the importance of knowing God's grace AND truth. One without the other is incompleteness.

We are told in scripture “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.” Proverbs 1:7 Here I am a wicked sinner chasing after things that will destroy me, learning daily to have reverential fear (He is a consuming fire), because HE alone is wise. I can’t know the truth about anything apart from Him, not even about myself because I lie to myself and justify my actions. But also, here I am a sinner saved by grace. I am loved. That HOLY God who I must fear, came to earth to die in my place and He tells me to love with all of my heart and soul. He tells me He is closer than a brother and Jesus says in John 17: 26 “And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” He is so close, I don’t have to go find Him, He is IN me by His Holy Spirit.

What a help, what a comfort to grasp these things. To trust in His wisdom and goodness, and also His love and presence. It makes me feel safe. But honestly it is a daily battle to remember these things. Life stinks, often. One heart ache and trial after another and I start to find myself all shaken and sick inside.

This is why devotions are so vitally important to the life of a believer. If I can’t give Him a few minutes each day to have communion with Him, to let Him remind me of truth and grace, what kind security in relationship will I feel I have? How can I walk on this cursed earth if I don’t follow the Shepherd.

A struggle I have repeatedly is in loving His people (How I love people!) and setting my heart on the thought that they are so darling that I can surely trust them. Over and over, I get a jolting shock when I find out they can take or leave me and never once hurt as they walk away. Oh, Praise Jesus, HE will NEVER do this to me.  I mentioned to a wise friend once that I wondered if those who chose not to stay in fellowship with me are hurting too, and she spoke truth to me.

“They aren’t thinking about you at all, Kim.”  So, I guess I am weird in that I think about people very often, and pray for them, and yes, long for them. I am wired very strangely, I guess. My soul sings with such complete contentment in knowing that Jesus is thinking about me, He even intercedes for me (Romans 8).

I have a list of experiences where I have known His presence and His providence. Where He showed me, He knew exactly where I was. No way could they be coincidences!  Here are a few…

There was the time He sent those suede winter boots exactly my size to the gift nook in the basement of the married housing at the Bible college. It was a snowy Sunday morning right before church and I had been complaining all I had was sneakers to wear. There they were, I slipped my stocking foot in, an perfect size 10’s they were!

There was the time I went to see my folks and was sad that soon I would have to go back to our ministry 7 hours away in Danbury, NH. Dad had been looking for reading material as he was healing from surgery and reached down in an old magazine rack and pulled out a book. A String Too Short to Be Saved, written by an author from Danbury, NH and was all about that town. Now how did that old book get in Dad’s magazine rack? I took it that the Lord was letting me know that He knew where we were serving, and to trust HIM.

Holding Him high and close is my lifelong purpose. To worship Him, to call Him my Lord, Master, and Creator. To know He is my Friend, my Treasure, my Hope and my Peace.

There are many things I want to say, but I am waiting on the Lord’s working in my life. From church things to job things, to health things, to relationship things, all is in a state of crazy right now. I don’t know what is coming, I don’t know if I will be okay. But this relationship is such a gift. I need Him and He won’t fail.

Romans 8:³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? ³³ Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written:

“For Your sake we are killed all day long;We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

³⁷ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. My Song- "You are held high, revered in my mind

Yet You are held close, in my heart and life.

You may be a personal loving God, but You are a righteous and Holy God.

You are held high, but You are held close,

'Cause I need them both, to worship and to know You.

You may be a personal loving God, but You are a righteous and Holy God."