Stuck On You – Stuck Like Glue!
Deuteronomy 30:20
That you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may CLING to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days…
There is such beautiful imagery in the Psalms – the only songbook authored, illustrated, and in-breathed by the Holy Spirit through the pen of David, Moses, Asaph, and a few others. In the title of Psalm 63, we discover where the psalmist David was: “A psalm of David. When he was in the Wilderness [Desert] of Judah.”
David was a fugitive, running for his life from the demonized King Saul and hiding in the desert caves of southern Israel. Though hot and thirsty, he turned that desperate situation into a vertical relationship with God instead of complaining. See how this Old Testament lover of God used every detail of his circumstances to directly relate to his personal passion to know God.
Psalms 63:1-2 (NKJV)
O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You;
My flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.
So I have looked for You in the sanctuary to see Your power and Your glory.
Then, after a few verses of heart-filled worship, he gives this unique illustration of how he saw himself following after God:
Psalm 63:8 (NASB)
My soul *CLINGS to You...
Other Bible versions translate it like this:
(NKJV) “My soul FOLLOWS CLOSE behind You.”
(NASB & ESV) “My soul CLINGS to You.”
(AMP) “My whole being FOLLOWS HARD after You and clings closely to You.”
(TPT) “With passion, I PURSUE and CLING to You.”
I have always enjoyed how it comes out in the Spanish Bible: “Está mi alma APEGADA a Ti” (RV 1960).
“Apegada” means “stuck” or “clingy,” and it is related to the word “pegar” which means “to glue.” So perhaps we could translate this verse like this:
“My soul is SUPER-GLUED to You!” Amen!
Then, in the very next breath, David says, “Your right hand holds me up.”
In David’s declaration, we discover a Precious Promise: When you are glued to the Lord, you don’t have to rely on your own weak strength. His massive, almighty right hand holds you up!
It‘s kind of like this: A child in her father’s arms sees a barking dog approaching. She instinctively wraps her arms around her daddy’s neck, grabbing tightly to any piece of his clothing. Her legs wrap around his waist while pushing up on his belt and pants with her feet as if to climb higher. Yet all the while, her daddy is holding her safely in his arms.
Or we can consider it as a little child running on ahead of their father down a path through a dark, dense forest. She does this several times, then turns around, smiling, to see her daddy coming up behind her. She does it one more time, but this time, when she turns around, her daddy is not there. At first, she laughs and frolics around looking for him, but when she cannot find him, her laughing quickly becomes a scared cry. Just then, her daddy steps out of the woods and scoops her up into his arms. The little girl confidently (yet holding back a tear or two) declares, “I am so glad that I found you, Daddy!”
The question is: Who is holding on to whom? And who really found who?
*“Cling” in the Old Testament original language of Hebrew is “Debaq,” which literally means “to cling to, to cleave to, to keep close, to be stuck, to be glued.”
Clinging and being “glued” to the Lord equates with undying, absolute, unshakeable loyalty to Him. Its first usage in the Bible is tied to the God-ordained marriage covenant and the fierce, unshakeable faithfulness that a husband must have with his wife – a loyalty that refuses to walk away when the storms of life hit:
Genesis 2:24 (KJV)
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall *CLEAVE unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
We see this same definition of “Debaq” put to the ultimate test in the beautiful story of Ruth and Orpah. Both women faced a massive crossroads of faith and future. Both loved their mother-in-law, Naomi. But when the road got rough and poverty loomed, their levels of loyalty were exposed:
Ruth 1:14,16
Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, BUT Ruth *CLUNG to her…
But Ruth said: “Entreat me not to leave you,
Or to turn back from following after you;
For wherever you go, I will go…
“Debaq” is used 10 times in the Old Testament to describe the relationship God wants us to have with Him (Deuteronomy 4:4; 10:20; 11:22; 13:4; 30:20; Joshua 22:5; 23:8; 2 Kings 18:6; Psalm 63:8; Jeremiah 13:11).
Today, high-tech industrial glues are rated by how much sheer weight and pressure they can withstand before they snap. Take J-B Weld Epoxy, for example. It proudly boasts a holding strength of 5,020 PSI. That means a single square inch of that glue can hold up 5,020 pounds—the weight of a heavy, full-sized SUV!
Wow! If we were to weigh the “glue force” of our loyalty and trust in the Lord under pressure, what would the rating be?
Look at the fierce loyalty of Eleazar, one of King David’s legendary “mighty men.” He fought so hard, so long, and with such fierce passion that the Bible records this incredible moment:
2 Samuel 23:10
He arose and attacked the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand STUCK to the sword,
The Lord brought about a great victory that day…
Is our “sword” (the Bible) “STICKING” and “CLINGING” loyally to our hand, or have we left it on a shelf?
God’s eyes are ever searching to see whose heart is loyal to Him:
2 Chronicles 16:9
For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is LOYAL to Him…
Lord Jesus, may Your searching eyes find me faithful today. May You find me passionately, loyally clinging to You in deep love until the very end—no matter how much tension, pressure, or distraction the enemy attempts to throw my way. Fill me right now with the *“dunamis” power of the Holy Spirit—the ultimate heavenly “Super-Glue” that I need to stay attached to You. And like Ruth, I boldly declare to You today:
“Entreat me not to leave You, or to turn back from following after You; For wherever You go, I will go.”
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
