Open HandsSample

Hands ready to Receive

To live a life with open hands means to live a life of surrender. It means trusting God with our future, our past, our finances, our families, with every fiber of our being, believing that his plan is for our good and for his greater glory. Yet living with open hands isn’t always about giving something up. Yes, we must open our hands as an act of trust and surrender, but the result will always be the receiving of blessings.

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he begins with an insight almost too grand for our minds to grasp: that God the Father has “blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:3, 4). What an amazing idea to consider, that before a molecule of this earth was set in place, God chose us to be his children! Our Father and Creator both gives us life and everything we need for this life in the person of Jesus Christ!

I know this way of thinking is counter-cultural. We live in a day when we can attain things faster than ever, retrieving facts from the internet in a matter of seconds and ordering things online with 24 hour shipping. I am certainly not complaining about these advances, yet somewhere in this craze of instant consumerism, we are tempted to believe the myth that we have the ability to meet our own needs.

But Jesus tells us a different story. There is a deeper need that starts with the letting go of things, not because our things are necessarily bad, but because what we find in the person of Jesus is infinitely better! Only Jesus can give us a peace that surpasses all understanding, a joy that transcends any circumstances and true freedom that could inspire someone like to Paul to write such hopeful words, even from a jail cell. Father, give me the faith to loosen my grip on the things of this world, that I might gain the greater spiritual blessings found only in your Son.

Take a mental stroll through your life and ask yourself if there are things you are holding onto with a vice-like grip. Those things that we grasp and hold so tightly, slowly but surely begin to get a grip on our heart. As God shows you these things, why don’t you loosen your grip and give them to him. You may be amazed to find that he will give them right back to you.