Lately I’ve been challenging myself in the notion of insecure clinginess towards God versus calm trust and devotion.
Time and again, in the midst of turmoil, the Christian’s posture in scripture comes back to this collected grounding in who God is, rather than a desperate reaching out. The nuance is important I think.
Here is a quote from a book I am reading in my devotional time:
Christian faith is not neurotic dependency but childlike trust. We do not have a God who forever indulges our whims but a God whom we trust with our destinies. The Christian is not a naive, innocent infant who has no identity apart from a feeling of being comforted and protected and catered to . . . We do not cling to God desperately out of fear and the panic of insecurity; we come to him freely in faith and love. . . God does not want us neurotically dependent on him but willfully trustful in him. And so he weans us.
Eugene Peterson
p. 157-159 A Long Obedience