Jesus promised, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28). We don’t cling out of fear of losing Him, rather we cling because nothing can separate us from His love. This is where our journey begins, not with our strength, but with His.

I’ll never forget the moment I realized my life was completely out of control.

I was lying in bed for several days with no motivation and a deep feeling of being swallowed whole by a darkness of depression and shame. The weight of my sin, my addictions, and my brokenness felt like it was physically crushing me. I had hit rock bottom with nowhere else to turn. In that desperate place, with nothing left to lose, I cried out to God with everything I had left inside me: “Lord, please… just let me know You!”

That broken, and desperate prayer became one of the most important turning points of my life, even though at the time, I had no idea what I was really asking for.

As a young boy, my family never found much interest in going to church. My parents divorced when I was around four years old and the confusion of that made a significant mark on my life, especially during my childhood and teenage years.

As a teenager, I spiraled into drugs (marijuana, LSD, Cocaine), lust, anger and rebellion. Even after I gave my life to Christ at the Gospel Mission (a local homeless shelter that my pastor ministered at) one Wednesday night, the pattern of sin and failure continued. I would have moments of what felt like genuine repentance, I would turn to God, experience temporary victory, and then slowly drift back into the same destructive behaviors weeks or months later. I even moved to Montana to attend Bible College, hoping a complete change of environment would finally “fix me.”

It didn’t.

And I must admit that in the midst of that dark bedroom moment, lying there broken and hopeless, I didn’t pray a nice well put together prayer. To be honest, I was just tired. Tired of me. I was done pretending I could fix myself and I was simply begging God to reveal Himself to me in a real way. I didn’t have fancy words nor did I have a plan. I just had deep desperation.

That cry was the beginning of learning what it truly means to cling to Christ.

You may have had moments like this, moments when the mask comes off and you witness how helpless you really are without Him. Can I tell you something? One of the most beautiful things about the gospel is that God is not put off by our sin or helplessness. In fact, He is drawn to it. He meets us in our desperation, not in our strength.

This is where clinging begins: not with self-confidence, but with desperation. You can rarely find the proud, self-sufficient, or well put together person on their knees asking to cling. No, we only find those who are needy and ready to surrender in this position. They don’t come with “I’ve got this,” but with “I can’t do this without You.”

The Christian life starts and continues with this kind of clinging. It is the only condition of the heart that knows it has no other hope but Christ.

What Does “Cling” Actually Mean?

The Bible uses a very specific word for this kind of desperate and committed attachment. In the original Hebrew, it’s the word dābaq. This word doesn’t mean a casual relationship or even a life of occasional prayer. It literally means to stick to something, to cleave to it, to be glued so tightly that separating the two things becomes very difficult.

This is the same word used when Scripture says a man shall “hold fast” to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. It’s the language of deep loyalty and unbreakable bond. When the Bible tells us to cling, it’s using this strong and very graphic word. The Bible is never offering us a small and loose choice, but rather it’s asking for a wholehearted, all-in kind of relationship.

This word became the thread that tied my entire journey together: from my rock bottom cry, through the examples we see in Scripture, all the way to the daily choice to stay connected to Jesus.

Now, I want to show you a few biblical pictures of what this clinging looks like.

David’s Desperate Cling in the Wilderness

One of the most honest and powerful pictures of clinging to God in the entire Bible comes from King David. While he was running for his life in the wilderness, hunted by King Saul and emotionally drained, he wrote these words in Psalm 63:

“My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.” (Psalm 63:8)

You must understand that this verse was not written from an attitude of comfort and pride. No, David was in one of the lowest points of his life. He was physically exhausted, living in caves, constantly looking over his shoulder, and feeling the angst of betrayal and danger. In that place of desperation, he doesn’t say “My soul believes in you” or “My soul serves you.” He says, “My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.”

He uses the intimate Hebrew word dābaq, again. David is saying, ‘I am holding on to You with everything I have, Lord.’

What makes this verse so special is the balance it reveals. Indeed, it’s a balance we all need to learn. David is clinging with all his might, but he immediately acknowledges that it’s God’s right hand that is upholding him. This is the beautiful tension of the Christian life. We are called to cling to God with desperation and with great focus, but we do so knowing that His hold on us is far stronger than our hold on Him. The Bible shows us that He’s a God who holds.

More than that, David wrote this psalm while he was in the wilderness of Judah. A wilderness can be a very lonely and dangerous place. And it’s in this place where he says,

“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1).

He was in a barren place, yet instead of turning away from God, he turned toward Him even more desperately.

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