One summer evening 31 years ago my son Andrew, (8) and I were walking from our family boat house to the upper camp. This short trek of about 100 yards up a wooded driveway is a familiar one to our family. However, at night without the assistance of the full moon, it requires a careful step and a certain distant lamp glow emanating from the camp windows as a bearing.
As we walked silently side by side in the darkness toward the camp, I suddenly felt a small hand slip into mine. I smiled, sensing his growing insecurity, and gave his had a fatherly squeeze. Nothing was said during the rest of the brief walk, but his hand remained firmly held to mine, and mine to his. However, once we reached the destination of the front steps of the camp, I found I hated to let his hand go.
So many thoughts and feelings were impressed upon my mind in that brief walk together. Perhaps that’s why I did not break the silence with small talk that might otherwise have been appropriate. I was savoring it, sifting out the message that has remained with me to this day— Don’t let go of the Father’s hand.
The moment Andrew reached out for my empty hand, I felt good; almost joy. In as much as he might have been seeking comfort, I was comforted. In the father-son intimacy, I felt close to him, and he to me. The darkness no longer mattered because we had each other. Love was silently exchanged through our hands.
At the same time I was also struck with how much I missed the hand of my older son Nathanael (13). Many a summer night we had walked that same driveway hand in hand, secure from the unknowns in the darkness and secure in the known love of father and son. But then having “grown up” he no longer needed my guiding hand, and confidently walked the path solo. Oh what joy it still would have meant, just to hold his hand! For a father’s love never grows too old for such things.
As Andrew’s young grasp was released from mine while he marched up the porch steps, I also felt a tinge of sadness wondering how much longer it would be until Andrew found his father’s hand no longer necessary for night time journeying. But then again, isn’t that the way it is, generation to generation? For a long, long, time ago, at that same boathouse, I once stopped holding on to my own father’s hand confident that I could navigate the way myself.
How it often this is with our Heavenly Father. When we are born again into newness of life, we find the Father’s hand to be a source of guidance and comfort. We hold on tight and feel the firmness of his grasp as we walk together through the uncertainties of life. But as time passes and we mature in faith, we can easily get the false illusion that we are more experienced and less in need of that steady hand-holding. In our growing ‘wisdom,’ we say that we don’t want to get too dependent on God. He could become a crutch! “After all,” we say, “God did give us brains to use!”
Yet this can easily be mistaken for having a mind of our own where we enjoy independence. We enter a phase of spiritual adolescence where we have our own ideas of how things should be done (do I sense rebellion here?). Besides, we know our way around the Bible. We know God is there when we need him. Unaware, we need him less and less and start to know him less and less. It is such a time of feeling we are so grown up, that we enter what some call “the dark night of the soul.”
In that walk with Andrew, I was reminded of two things from a spiritual perspective. First, we should never, ever, feel that we are too grown up to take hold of the Father’s hand. Actually, we should never let go at all! For no matter where we may have to journey in this life, no matter how bright or dark the pathway, God promises to be there. The psalmist David wrote of this: If I rise on the wings of dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘surely the darkness will hide me and become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. Psalm 139:9-12 NIV Second, Father God delights to have us take hold of His hand. God is love, and His love for His children is great. As the hymn writer wrote, “Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father. There is no shadow of turning with thee ….”
Dear Christian, it is we who turn and venture off on our own! But as in the story of the Prodigal, our Heavenly Father aches and waits for our repentant return, and with joy runs to us when he sees us coming home to His hand. If I found joy in that moment when my son took hold of my hand, how much more does Father God delight when we, by faith, slip our hand into His?
Right now do you feel like you are on a pathway that is unfamiliar, unclear, uncertain, scary? Hold on to the Father’s hand. Even so, do you feel like He may be leading you deeper into the darkness of the night, or to somewhere you don’t want to go? Hold on. Hold on and don’t let go of the Father’s hand. Remember you need to hold His hand, and He delights to have it there! Keep on walking like that, hand in hand, until you reach the safety of the front porch steps of heaven itself. Don’t let go of the Father’s hand.
Note: Now, both of my adult married sons are experiencing the same with their own children!
—RWO/MAST
Comments by Ric Ochsner