In God’s Hands

Today, I was reading how sweet little Joyelle Ross came out of surgery successfully after having a bone growth removed from her hand.  Her family asked for prayers that the growth won’t return again, and her mother said that ultimately, “it is in God’s hands.”  While this is certainly true, I chuckled as I thought about how the bone growth that is in Joyelle’s hand is in God’s hand.  This made me stop and think about God’s hand in relation to our hands.

 When we talk about God’s hand in our lives, we are likely referring to the invisible hand of God working things out for the greater good in our lives.  We don’t see the hand, but we see the results and His plan unfolding in our lives.  We see diseases cured, lives saved, and modern day miracles when we really look around to observe the hand of God all around us.  This is one aspect of God’s work, but we also have a very tangible, visible aspect that we don’t often consider.

 Our hands ARE the hands of God.  God has given us our hands with our ten fingers to carry out his will.  God’s work is being done in a tangible way by those who realize that they are the hand of God, and they may be the only hand of God that some people ever see.  If Christ is in us, and the spirit of God is in us, then He is most certainly in our hands.  What we do with our hands is more important than I had previously realized.  If I am a servant of the Lord, and I am going about His work, then I have a great responsibility and a wonderful privilege.  What an honor to be able to use them to bring glory to God. 

 What we choose to do with our hands is one of the most important decisions we will make in our lives.  Understanding whose hands they really are is an essential step in our journey.  Having idle hands is not an option.

 2 Cor. 5:10 

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”

 Next week, I’ll explore more thoughts on our hands.

From Knowing to Going

A father noticed how cluttered his son’s room was becoming, so he called his son to his side.  He instructed his son to clean his room before supper, and the boy nodded his head, said, “Yes paw.  Right away.”  The father was pleased at the prompt attention his son gave to his request.  Some time later, the son returned to where his father was, and the father asked him, “Did you do what I instructed?”  The boy confidently answered, “I memorized exactly what you said, and I even wrote it down in my notepad.  I studied the words and I am now able to write and recite them in Greek and in Hebrew, but I didn’t stop there.  I studied the history behind cleaning rooms, and I have determined the most effective way to do it.  I understand exactly what it is that causes a room to become cluttered, and I have begun a detailed outline of the steps that should be taken to make my room spotless!” 

 The father asked again, “Did you do what I instructed?”

 The lesson here and the parallel to our relationship with God and His Word should be obvious.

 God has given us specific instructions.  We may study them regularly, and we may do word studies to get even deeper into the scriptures.  We may mark our Bibles until there is no more space in the margins, but until we act upon it, and do what is asked of us, we are still standing at the starting line.

 1 Cor. 9:24

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.”