HUG OF THE HEART

GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS

365 DEVOTIONS FROM OUR DAILY BREAD

Hug of the Heart

Read:  Mark 10:13-16

He took [little children] up in His arms…

and blessed them.  Mark 10:16

A friend told me about a touching conversation between her two grandchildren, five-year-old Matthew and three-year-old Sarah.  The boy said, “I talk to Jesus in my head!” The girl responded, “I don’t-I just cuddle with Him!’

While Jesus lived on earth, He took little children in His arms and blessed them (Mark 10:16).  And He is still in the children bracing ministry today.

Many of God’s children, much older ones, have experienced His unseen everlasting arms around them and beneath them.  Brother Lawrence, the seventeenth-century monk known for sensing the presence of God even amid the pots and pans of the monastery kitchen, spoke of being “Known of God and extremely caressed by Him.”  And Hudson Taylor, the pioneer missionary to China, scrawled this note as he neared the end of his life:  “I am so weak that I cannot work; I cannot read my Bible; I cannot even pray.  I can only lie still in  God’s arms like a child, and trust.”

Whether we’re young or old, strong or weak, God wants us to cuddle close to Him in childlike trust.  He will respond through His indwelling Spirit by drawing us to Himself to comfort and to bless.

Have you and God had a “hug of the heart” today?                 JY

The Lord took children in His arms

To bless them and to show

That if we come in childlike faith

His presence we will know. -Sper

Jesus longs for our fellowship even more than we long for His.