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| © Elise Grinstead 2012 |
There are no muscles in our fingers. The muscles reside within the palm and wrist, and our fingers know to move as if it were a marionette puppet being controlled by strings. While the fingers are separate, their systems are intertwined and they come back to the source of muscles in the palm and wrist. These fingers that can do so much—they seem self sufficient, but they are not. They rely on a created system of power outside of themselves, yet connected. About a quarter of the motor cortex in the human brain (the part of the brain which controls all movement in the body) is devoted to the muscles of the hands.1 These extremities of our bodies do so much, but they are reliant upon the systems that govern it.
The things that are delicate—by my own nature, I will crumple them and handle them roughly. The things that are heavy and weighty—they will slip from my fingers and fall, for I do not hold them with the strength that I ought.
If I curl my fingers around the things placed in my hands, I constrict the freedom of gratitude to swell from what the Lord has given and ordained. I desire there to be endless praise and thanksgiving for what He has chosen to give or not give, and these fingers must always lay at rest ready to be lifted up to praise. He is the bearer of all things.
I do not wish to hold responsibility that I assume upon myself. That puts me in the position of being a self-governor and ruler, and within my own flesh, I do not have the longevity to sustain it.
I do wish to be a good steward of what God has placed before me, with whatever and whomever He deems good and/or necessary. With that, I trust His sovereign rule and His supplied grace, strength, and wisdom to fulfill it. His longevity will never cease, and that is a well from which I may drink without end.
The hands, under the Lord’s rule, often bring healing and relief to others and a surrender of self to the Lord. The hands, under self’s rule, often bring pain and suffering to others and a master of self instead of the Lord. A hand can bring a healing touch or a destructive swipe. The hands can build and the hands can destroy. The duality of the governance of the Lord versus the governance of self is so apparent.
If something or someone is placed in my hand by the Lord, I trust He also gives His wisdom in how to handle it—even if it should propel me into the very depths of who He is in order to do it.
And then, there are the hands of the Lord. The hands of the Lord are mighty to save. They are gentle in grace. They are giving of mercy. They are swift in justice. They are embracing in love. They are perfect in their giving and taking away. The hands of the Lord bear His every characteristic and they are the bridge between us and Him. They are how He reaches and touches us, if we should need such a metaphor to help us understand His spirit within us.
As I myself am surrendered to the Lord, so He is the system that should govern me—every part, but in particular, these hands. And I, a sinner being reformed, continue to learn to relinquish control over governing myself; the effects of which are so noticeable as these fingers crushing delicate things, dropping the weighty, or attempting to hold in my own wisdom that my fingers curl and suppress thanksgiving and surrender.
1 http://www.eatonhand.com/hw/facts.htm
