The metaphor, I suppose, is more eloquent than all explanations of it.
'Believe in the Lord'; hold fast by Him with a tight grip, continually
renewed when it tends to slacken, as it surely will, and then you will
be established.
We might run out into any number of figurative illustrations. Look at
that little child beginning to learn to walk, how it fastens its
little dimpled hands into its mother's apron, and so the tiny
tottering feet get a kind of steadfastness into them. Look at that man
lying at the door of the Temple, who never had walked since his
mother's womb, and had lain there for forty years, with his poor weak
ankles all atrophied by reason of their disuse. 'He _held_ Peter
and John.' Would not his grasp be tight? Would he not clasp their
hands as his only stay? He had not become accustomed to the astounding
miracle of walking, nor learned to balance himself and accomplish the
still more astounding feat of standing steady. So he clutched at the
two Apostles and was 'established.' Look at that man walking by a
slippery path which he does not know, holding by the hand the guide
who is able to direct and keep him up. See this other in some wild
storm, with an arm round a steadfast tree-stem, to keep him from being
blown over the precipice, how he clings like a limpet to a rock. And
that is how we are to hold on to God, with what would be despair if it
were not the perfection of confidence, with the clear sense that the
only thing between us and ruin is the strong Hand that we clasp.
And what do we mean by clasping God? I mean making daily efforts to
rivet our love on Him, and not to let the world, with all its delusive
and cloying sweets, draw us away from Him. I mean continual and
strenuous efforts to fix our _thoughts_ upon Him, and not to
allow the trivialities of life, or the claims of culture, or the
necessities of our daily position so to absorb our minds as that
thoughts of God are comparative strangers there, except, perhaps,
sometimes on a Sunday, and now and then at the sleepy end, or the
half-awake beginning, of a day. I mean continually repeated and
strenuous efforts to cleave to Him by the submission of our
_will_, letting Him 'do what seemeth Him good,' and not lifting
ourselves up against Him, or perking our own inclinations, desires,
and fancies in His face, as if we would induce Him to take them for
His guides! And I mean that we should try to commit our _way_
unto the Lord, 'to rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.' The
submissive will which cleaves to God's commandments, the waiting heart
that clings to His love, the regulated thoughts that embrace His
truth, and the childlike confidence that commits its path to
Him--these are the elements of that steadfast adherence to the Lord
which shall not be in vain.