But I never turned my back on my faith,
and I know God hasn’t
written me off, either. He’s too damn tenacious.
—Tilt, Ellen Hopkins
te·na·cious [/təˈnāSHəs]
adj.
1. Holding or tending to hold persistently to something
2. Holding together firmly; cohesive.
3. Clinging to another object or surface
4. stubbornly unyielding
God and tenacious. Never really thought about that word in relation to God (and seriously, who would’ve thought I’d find it in a Ellen Hopkins book of all things?). But looking up all of the definitions of the word (like the little English nerd I am), tenacious makes perfect sense.
“He is jealous for me.”
Deuteronomy 4:24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
For me. Crazy thought. Jealous for me? For us? Though we fight and run away and turn our backs when things don’t go the right way. He wants us, nothing more and nothing less. He tenaciously fights for us every day. Fights for our attention, our love. Some days He wins. Most days He loses (being honest here, folks). But he won’t give up. He is tenacious in his love and passion for his creation.
Am I the only one totally flabbergasted by this thought? Seriously? We can never escape him (awesome yet somewhat scary thought all rolled up into one), so it says in Psalm 139. No matter how far I run, He’s always gonna be there waiting for me to come back. He will never quit holding us in His hand, He will never stop persisting and pursuing us like the lost children we are. Such an awe-inspiring God to think that no matter what, He’s never leaving us? To me, that is extraordinary.
Thank you for the reminder, God. Tenacity is a beautiful thing when seen through the eyes of a never relenting God, no?
I can’t think of a better visual representation. I still get goosebumps. Every.single.time.
“You hold me in your hands…You won’t let me fall.”