FIVE FOLDED FINGERS (From the Archive)
A Dramatic Moment from TOTAL IMPACT Vol. 3 Issue 6 originally published in July/August 1995
Life would be a lot easier if the rule that applies to m&m’s also applied to lightning bugs. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. As a result, there are a great number of well-intentioned toddlers with bug guts on their hands. But what else can be expected? When you’re five, your grasp goes for that which whisks overhead. Each insect learns early in that every five-year-old’s name is “Mine.”
By the time the small terror’s parents have pried the little glowfella from his hands. there is no life left - only bug mush. Our assessment of this situation would of course be “how childish.” How unfair throw away the life of the well-lit simply because it was grasped so tightly. What a shame to refuse to let something so brilliant see beyond the grasp of the hand.
Yet, the hand has seen some pretty exciting holdings in the past. Exodus chapter 14 tells us of a time where God saved the Israelites by parting the Red Sea. The nation of Israel walked across dry land as the waves rolled backward. Today, you’d have to go to Orlando to see an event of this stature, but back then you just had to wait for Moses to raise his staff: an ordinary piece of wood chosen to be used by an extraordinary God.
Throughout the Gospels, we are told of many more hands (large and small alike) that held some of the mightiest of miracles. A child’s hands that gave his only fishes to feed five thousand. A fisherman’s hands that cast out a net to overflow a boat with fish. A Savior’s hands that were pierced with an ordinary nail in order to carry the weight of the world.
Now, is there anything inherently special about Moses’ staff or the child’s lunch or the fisherman’s nets? No. The only difference between destroying a bug and a miracle is obedience. The difference is in an open hand. God didn’t care what was in the hands of the obedient ones. He only cared that they loosened their grip and offered Him their all. The miracle arrived when the folded fingers released. When the staff was raised to Heaven. When the lunch of a hungry boy was shared. When the nets of the fishermen were allowed to break. When Christ opened His hand in pain to the suffering world. It is only at the point of sacrifice that the living thing God has given us can be completely utilized.
Our prayer here is that we continually open our fingers. That we never lose the innocence of reaching higher for God’s will, but also never suffocate it in our clench for identity. God has blessed many here at Impact with different and unique abilities. He is asking us the same thing He is asking you.
Give Him what is in your hand.
God is no respecter of persons. He doesn’t prefer what is in one’s hand to another’s. He only respects obedience. For us, that entails the greatest level of creativity, talent, communication, administration, and obedience that we can possibly give. It also includes giving of ourselves, and we will continue to give our all right back to the Kingdom - a Kingdom that will only grow as we learn to let go.
Next: “No Time to Tango!” A Dramatic Moment from TOTAL IMPACT Vol. 3 Issue 7 originally published in September/October 1995