For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee. – Isaiah 41:13
Recently I read a heartbreaking account from World War II. During the Holocaust, one of the things the Nazis did was to isolate children from their parents. A nursery was set up where the State would raise the children, and their parents were all taken away. This was a kind of study to see how the children would respond in this environment.
The babies were in bassinets, and most of them were not doing very well developmentally. The scientists running the project found that there was one baby who seemed to be thriving compared to the others, but they could not figure out why. One of the scientists decided to stay and monitor that child for three nights to see if something different was happening to him. Sure enough, at about four ‘o clock in the morning, a janitor lady came by the nursery with her mop. She set the mop in a corner, stepped inside the nursery, and picked up one little baby. She held him in her arms for about ten minutes, and then laid him back down and went back to her work. Just ten minutes of being cradled each night was what caused that baby to do better than all the others.
This was a sad reminder of how Jews and other minorities were treated during the Holocaust. It also caused me to think about the importance of being held—not just physically, but spiritually. God wants to spend quality time with us every day, yet if we do not make room in our schedules for Him, we will suffer in our Christian development. Of course, we all have busy schedules. Most of us are not able to devote hours of our days to studying the Bible, but consider what would be the impact of just ten minutes, every day, of letting God hold us. I believe adding that nearness to our daily routine would have a profound effect on our walks with God.
If we have been struggling spiritually, might it be because of a lack of time spent with God? The problems we face at work and school, with our families, and in everyday issues that come up, are not so overwhelming when we have taken time to be with God and to let Him hold us. Let’s not neglect the opportunity we have to be near to Him.