The Nail in a Sure Place: Where God Already Is

Yesterday morning I read four words in Isaiah that followed me for the rest of the day.

“A nail in a sure place.”

And I have to tell you, my first response wasn't particularly spiritual.

It was a little bratty.

When I was younger, my mom used to tell me I shouldn't use the phrase “nail in the sure place” outside of the temple. She believed it was temple language. Sacred language. Something we didn't talk about outside of that space.

So there I was yesterday morning, reading Isaiah 22, and there it was.

Right there in the scriptures.

A nail in a sure place.

And immediately I thought, Mom. Look. It's right here.

I smiled thinking about her in heaven and how much I would have loved to show her that verse.

See? I wasn't breaking any rules.

It made me laugh a little.

But then the teasing thought passed, and curiosity took its place.

What does this actually mean?

That happens to me sometimes when I study. A word catches me. Or a phrase. Something I have probably read before suddenly won't let me move on.

And when that happens, I try to stay there.

I want to know why it caught me.

At the top of the pages in my study notebook, I often think through three things:

A mirror. A window. A doorway.

The mirror asks, Where do I see myself in what I am studying?

Where am I in this story? What is this revealing about me? What am I carrying right now? What am I afraid of? What am I hoping God will do?

The window asks, How does God see this?

What does He know that I don't know yet? What can He see from where He is that I cannot see from where I am? What does this teach me about Him?

And then there is the doorway.

This is probably my favorite part.

If I can see my perspective and begin to understand God's perspective, how do I walk through the world differently because of what I just learned?

Because I don't want my scripture study to end when I close my scriptures.

I want it to change something about the way I live.

So I started pulling on the thread.

Isaiah 22 tells us about Eliakim, who was given “the key of the house of David.” Isaiah says he would open and no one would shut, and shut and no one would open.

Then I went to Revelation 3, where Jesus Christ uses that same language to describe Himself.

He holds the key of David.

He opens what no one can shut.

He shuts what no one can open.

I also found Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's teaching about the Messianic symbolism in this chapter and his connection between this image in Isaiah and Jesus Christ.

Now I was really curious.

What had started as a funny little moment between me and my mom in heaven had become something I couldn't stop thinking about.

So I wrote down a question:

What does it mean for Jesus Christ to be the Nail in a Sure Place in my life?

And then I did something very me.

I texted a friend.

What do you think this means?

Because apparently I wasn't planning on giving the Spirit very long to answer before I started asking someone else.

He didn't answer.

I checked later.

Still nothing.

So the question stayed with me.

And looking back, I am so grateful it did.

I carried it through the rest of my morning.

Then I carried it into the temple.

Nail in a sure place.

I was going through an endowment that afternoon, and I decided I wasn't going to force an answer.

I was just going to take the question with me.

And somewhere along the way, the Spirit began teaching me.

Quietly.

Not all at once.

A thought came.

Then a memory.

Then something familiar suddenly meant something different.

And I began remembering places I have been before.

Not physical places.

Spiritual ones.

Places where life had brought me to my knees.

There have been moments in my life when I have found myself at my own altar completely undone.

Crying.

Begging.

Trying to understand something that didn't make sense.

Trying to hold something I didn't know how to carry.

And sometimes there weren't even many words left.

Just a question.

God, are You there?

Do You hear my words?

I have prayed that prayer more than once.

Maybe not always exactly like that, but I know the feeling of it.

Are You here?

Can You hear me?

Because I don't know what to do with this.

There are prayers we pray when everything feels faithful and hopeful.

And then there are prayers we pray when faith is still there, but barely.

When we don't need a beautiful answer.

We just need to know we aren't alone.

And as those memories came back to me in the temple, those four words from Isaiah started changing.

A nail in a sure place.

I realized I had spent most of my time thinking about the nail.

What am I fastening my life to?

What can I depend on?

What will hold me?

And there are so many things in this world that seem like they should.

People.

Relationships.

Marriage.

Children.

Money.

Success.

Plans.

Our own strength.

Our ability to solve the problem.

Even the answer we desperately want God to give us.

Sometimes we find one of those things and think, There. If I can just hold onto this, I'll be okay.

And then life changes.

Someone leaves.

Someone disappoints us.

A relationship changes.

A child makes a choice we didn't expect.

A prayer isn't answered the way we thought it would be.

The door doesn't open.

The plan falls apart.

Something we thought was certain suddenly isn't.

I've lived enough life now to know that happens.

And sitting in the temple, I realized I had been concentrating so much on the nail that I almost missed the words that mattered most to me.

The sure place.

A nail can only carry the weight if it has been fastened somewhere strong enough to hold it.

And then the answer came so quietly.

The Sure Place is where God already is.

I didn't have to find Him.

I didn't have to convince Him to come closer.

I didn't have to become faithful enough or strong enough or good enough to somehow reach Him.

He was already there.

And suddenly that answer reached backward into some of the hardest moments of my life.

All those times I cried,

Are You there?

He was.

All those moments I wondered,

Do You hear me?

He did.

All those times I found myself at my own altar trying to survive something that felt too heavy for me...

I wasn't there alone.

He was already there.

And that's when the tears started.

I could feel them running down my face as the Spirit continued teaching me.

Through familiar words.

Through sacred symbols.

Through memories.

Through tokens and signs that reminded me of covenant and connection.

Things I had experienced before were teaching me something new because this time I had brought a question with me.

And eventually I came to the veil.

There are parts of that experience that are sacred to me, so I won't try to put all of them into words.

But I can tell you what settled into my heart.

A hand.

His hand.

And I realized how much of my life I have spent asking Jesus to make me strong enough to carry things.

Make me strong enough for this.

Strong enough for the heartbreak.

Strong enough for the uncertainty.

Strong enough for the people I love.

Strong enough for the grief.

Strong enough to make it through.

And I wondered, standing there, if perhaps He has been offering me something different all along.

Not more strength in my own hands.

His hand.

Take it.

Surrender.

Loosen your grip.

Let go.

Let Me pull you through.

That thought undid me a little.

Because there are things I have held so tightly.

Maybe you have too.

Sometimes we hold onto people because we are afraid of losing them.

We hold onto outcomes because we are afraid of what happens if the story goes differently.

We hold onto our children as if worrying hard enough might somehow protect them.

We hold onto plans.

Timelines.

Expectations.

Answers.

We even hold onto pain because at least the pain is familiar.

And eventually our hands become so full that we have forgotten what it feels like to simply reach.

There is nothing I will carry in this life that is too heavy for Him.

I need to remember that.

Nothing.

Not the relationship I don't understand.

Not the people I love whose choices I cannot make for them.

Not the prayer that hasn't been answered.

Not the grief that still catches me sometimes.

Not the future I cannot see.

Not the thing I am afraid might happen.

Not even those moments when my fear feels bigger than my faith.

None of it is too heavy for Him.

That doesn't mean He will always take the hard thing away.

I wish sometimes it did.

I have prayed those prayers.

Please fix this.

Please change this.

Please don't let this happen.

Please make this stop hurting.

And sometimes He does change the circumstance.

But sometimes the miracle isn't that God removes what is in front of us.

Sometimes He reaches out His hand.

And says,

Come.

Maybe surrender looks like taking it.

Not giving up.

Not pretending we don't care.

Not deciding something doesn't hurt anymore.

Just releasing our demand to know how everything is going to turn out.

I don't know how this ends, but I know where You are.

I don't understand this, but I know You are here.

I cannot carry all of this by myself anymore.

And then reaching.

That was my doorway.

My mirror showed me all the places where I have searched for something strong enough to hold me.

My window showed me something God already knew.

He was there the whole time.

And my doorway became the way I want to walk forward knowing that.

The next time life feels too heavy, I don't have to frantically search for something else to hold onto.

I can reach for His hand.

When I don't know what happens next, I don't have to create certainty where there isn't any.

I can reach for His hand.

And when I find myself at my own altar again, tears falling, without many words left except,

God, are You there?

Do You hear me?

I hope I remember the answer He gave me yesterday.

I am here.

By the time I sat in the celestial room, I remembered the text I had sent my friend that morning.

He still hadn't answered.

And I smiled.

Because suddenly I was grateful he hadn't.

I didn't need his answer anymore.

God had given me mine.

And maybe that was part of the lesson too.

Sometimes I am so quick to ask someone else what they think, what they would do, what something means.

There isn't anything wrong with that.

But sometimes God might be asking me to sit with the question a little longer.

To wonder.

To listen.

To bring it with me.

To give Him enough quiet space to answer me personally.

Yesterday morning, I thought I was studying four words in Isaiah.

By the time I sat in the celestial room, I realized those four words had been answering a prayer I have prayed in different ways for years.

Are You there?

Do You hear me?

Yes.

He was there then.

He is here now.

And He will be there for whatever comes next.

Maybe that is what I needed to understand about the Nail in a Sure Place.

The world will give me a thousand things to depend on.

Some of them will be good things.

Beautiful things.

People I love deeply.

But they were never meant to carry the full weight of my life.

There is only One Sure Place.

And nothing I bring into this life will ever be too heavy for Him.

So when I don't know what comes next, maybe I don't have to.

I just have to reach for His hand.

Surrender.

Let go.

And trust Him to pull me through.