by Sandy Kirby Quandt

In a recent Max Lucado UpWords Daily Devotional he described God’s love as a harness binding us to him. Max explained that the Hebrew word hasaq meant tethered, attached to something or someone. Harnessed.

This harnessed love served two purposes … yanking and claiming.

When I was a toddler I wanted to explore. That meant I wandered. That meant I was hard to keep track of. That also meant my wandering could put me in danger.

Of course, I had no idea what that meant, nor did I care, the day I walked out of the downtown Sears store on my own and decided to take a look around.

To remedy the problem of my incessant wandering my mother purchased a pink harness to keep me bound to her when we went out.

To this day I have vivid recollections of retrieving the hateful thing, handing it to her, and standing still while she strapped it around my chest.

I didn’t understand the purpose of that harness was to keep me safe. I didn’t understand it showed my mother loved me enough to keep me close, despite my efforts to run away. I didn’t understand it bound me to her to show I was her child and belonged to her.

All I saw was a loss of freedom.

If we think of God’s love as a hateful thing that takes away our freedom, keeps us restricted and unable to enjoy life, like I did with my pink harness, we’re missing the true reason for his harness.

God’s tether of love shows the world we belong to him and are his children.

It says his love is beyond measure and he wants to keep us safe.

Being harnessed by the ropes of God’s love means he chose us and we are precious to him.

Chafing against the tether of God’s love?

Perhaps we need to see it from his point of view and realize he tethers us because he loves us and claims us as his own.

Leave a comment below to share your thoughts on the subject. If you think others would appreciate reading this, please share it through the social media buttons.

Look around you: Everything you see is God’s—the heavens above and beyond, the Earth, and everything on it. But it was your ancestors who God fell in love with; he picked their children—that’s you!—out of all the other peoples. Deuteronomy 10:14-15 (MSG)

I wish you well.

Sandy

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