You shall follow the Lord your God and fear Him; and you shall keep His commandments, listen to His voice, serve Him, and cling to Him. (Deuteronomy 13:4)
It was nearly 30 years ago when I arrived at home one day and listened to an excited series of voice mail messages from my GP surgery urgently telling me to phone them. Blood test results had returned and my life was in danger – I had been diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease called Addison’s Disease. My adrenal glands did not produce the cortisol hormone, which is critically needed to release Adrenalin. So I was quickly prescribed steroid tablets and I haven’t stopped taking them since.
Every morning and every night I put these innocuous-looking, powdered tablets into my mouth – and if I don’t there’s a very high risk of imminent death. It’s not like taking a vitamin supplement. I MUST take these steroids regularly, without interruption and always remembering. I must “hold fast” to these pills to protect my biological system. And of course, there have been times when I’ve been ill or needed surgery or suffered stress, that I needed to double the dose or receive them through an IV drip in hospital. The risk of an Addisonian Crisis – when the body shuts down because of a lack of cortisone are horrendous – and I have suffered the tipping point into death from such a crisis, a number of times in the past.
I hate having such a disease and the dependency it forces upon me – on doctors, medicine, on keeping stable. However, the steroids keep me alive. They are essential for life.
God is love and we equally depend on him. He is essential for us to function in life. The writer of this incredible verse in Deuteronomy 13:4 understood this clearly. Life with God or die without God is the essential message. He’s not a philosophical option for spiritual wanderers but the core of all that we are. It says in Acts, “For in him we live and move and have our being.’
My mum has a beautiful perspective of joy found by resting “in God’s pocket.” So throughout our days, during big occasions and small moments, let’s take every opportunity to cling to Him and find peace in His pocket.
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