Kind of silly and sweet at the same time but when I think of our relationship with the Lord, I see it a lot like this picture. Piglet is looking up at Pooh and takes his paw as they amble along in the woods and he says ,"Just making sure of you..." He just wants to know he's still there. That he is with him. That he is for him. When I walk through my wilderness I like to make sure my Savior is there too. Personal crisis and struggle brings us into dark places sometimes. It feels like we're out in the wilderness and we're all alone. Desperate for anything. Desperate for meaning. Desperate to know someone is for us.
I think of the many great stories of the bible where people faced desperate times. Jonah in the belly of the whale, Daniel and the lion's den, Jesus was desperate too. Imagine what He must have felt knowing his fate. He had healed so many, raised people from the dead, could call on legions of angels at any moment and yet He drank from the cup of suffering so all of us could live. His desperate moment of making sure that his Father was still there came as he asked if there was any other way, but offered not my will but yours be done. Though he was aware of what was about to happen, he knew his Father's will trumped any fear or anxiety he had. So what I've struggled with is the following line "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" In a way, Jesus was still making sure of His Father. Consider all He's been through at this point, the scourging, the beating, the crown of thorns, being nailed to the cross. He no longer addresses God as Father but as God. He is now a man in agony just like David's fulfillment of the 22nd Psalm. He is a man in need of his God and He feels abandoned. I think, in my very humble opinion, that cry is for all those of us who are in our wilderness. All those of us who are hurting. All those of us that need to make sure our Father is there, that He has our back. Thankfully we don't have to worry about being swallowed by a great fish, being thrown into a den of lions, or even suffering the way our Savior suffered for us. But we do have our moments. We sometimes, by our own choices, place ourselves in the wilderness. No matter how deep in the thicket, because of Jesus sacrifice, we can take our Father's hand, look up, and say "Just making sure of you..."
"For I am the Lord your God
who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, Do not fear;
I will help you."
Isaiah 41:13
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