“I am the Lord, I have called You in righteousness,
I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You”
Isaiah 42:6a
The more I learn about Jesus' earthly relationship with His Father, the more encouraged and challenged I am to cling second-by-second to the Father and to obey Him as purely as Jesus did. What a love they shared, even though Jesus was profoundly tested, being put through multi-dimensional struggles none of us can really imagine. Yet the Father was confident in His Son, and knew that Jesus knew He was loved unequivocally. In case Jesus ever began to doubt this, all He had to do was turn to scripture, because the Old Testament is laced with sweet images of the love of God for His chosen One.
Here's one I'd never noticed before, although I'm sure Jesus knew it by heart: "I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You."
The reason I'm sure Jesus knew this by heart is that when He was about to die, He told His disciples (John 16:32),
"Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me."
He knew His Father's love so well, He understood that even though the Father would have to abandon and utterly reject Him for a brief time, He would be with Him. He would not leave Him alone. I can’t grasp this, logically -- it's a mystery. Yet I can learn so much from it.
Do I really believe that God loves me every second? Even when I fail Him (which is every day), His love for me is unwavering. Amazingly, the pledge He makes to Jesus in Isaiah 42 is also ours by extension, if we are His: He has called each of us in righteousness, and will also hold us by the hand and watch over us. There's no shortcut to learning this. It's only learned "by heart" -- from His heart to ours, as we yield to His will and allow Him to teach us to trust Him.