Cling: Choosing a Lifestyle of Intimacy with God

One of my most vivid memories as a girl was waiting for my daddy to pick me up after my parents divorced. Bag packed, I’d sit on my twin bed, jumping up to peer out the window when a car engine neared. As dusk turned to dawn I knew my daddy wasn’t coming. Again. And I wondered, Do I matter?

Fast forward to when I was twenty-seven. God captured my heart and became my Abba Father. Not long after, as I was studying through the Bible, one word beckoned like a neon sign in Deuteronomy 10:20 and then again in Deuteronomy 13:4:

“You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear Him; and you shall keep His commandments, listen to His voice, serve Him, and cling to Him” (NASB, emphasis added).

Every other verb in that verse made perfect sense. Of course God would want us to have a reverential fear of Him, keep His commandments, listen to His voice, and serve Him.

We can do all of those things from a distance. We can even follow from a distance, as long as we’re headed in the same direction. But cling to Him? That was personal. In fact, it’s the same word used in Genesis 2:24 to speak of the most intimate relationship we can know this side of heaven: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

Did God really want us that close?! What a gift for a girl who always wondered if she really mattered.

Moved by those verses, I began to pray, Lord, help me to cling to You. And for the past two decades, through ups and downs, trials and storms, the Lord has been faithful to teach me.

Not that I’m an “expert clinger”—I don’t always get it right. But I know this—I need to cling to Him. I’m desperate to cling to Him. Every aspect of life is affected by whether I’m clinging to Him.

What if intimacy with God was your main aim? You don’t ever have to wait for that. Almighty God really does want you that close to Him.

Kim Cash Tate is the author of more than ten books, including Cling, a Bible study on intimacy with God. She left her career as an attorney at the age of thirty-two to be home with her kids and homeschool them. We are delighted that she was able to join us for our recent Sisters in Ministry Summit where she delivered this message on clinging to Christ.