April 9, 2011 Strong Hands

Strong Hands
Read Nehemiah 6

Neh 6:9 Now therefore, O God, strengthen my hands.

I ADMIRE strong hands. They are usually hands of a person who can expertly craft and build. Strong hands mix strength with a delicate touch.
My son-in-law’s hands are like that. He works all day with tools to remove dents from cars. I look at those tools and have no concept of how they can remove a dent from the middle of a car door and not touch or disturb the rest of the door. He makes the dent smooth. It disappears, and you never would know it existed. He has strong hands with a delicate touch, the hands of a craftsman.
Our hands for the Gospel of God are to be those same kind of hands—strong and delicate, gifted to remove the “dents” that come into our lives.
God has given us hands to love and to serve one another. In the strength of his Spirit and in the delicate touch of his healing, we use our hands to pray for a broken heart, to embrace one in grief, to lift high in praise, to hold a child in love, to wipe away tears, to guide an aged one to the table. He has given us hands to “remove the dents” from people’s lives to make them whole in heart and Spirit.
Thanks you, God, for strong hands we can use as we trust your strong hands caring for us.


Pause and Consider: how powerful is a helping hand.