Keep Your Hands Open

The devotional below is the result of everything that's happened over that last six weeks combined with the fact that I ended up listening to Matt Chandler's sermon on Missional Living 4 times yesterday. (Go to The Village Churches website using the link in the sidebar and listen to it for yourself.) The story I open with happened about a year and a half ago but this is the first time I've said anything about it to anyone. I hope some of you find it as helpful as it was for me to write it.

~JR~


Keep your hands open. He had just got done giving me a simple but profound sermonette and this was his punch line, keep your hands open.

I had been trying to be more loving towards the homeless as I had opportunity and this guy had pulled up on his bike as I walked out of Dairy Queen and asked for some money to buy a burger. Normally I don’t give money to people like this because I know there’s a good chance they’ll use it to get stoned, or drunk, or both but there was something about this particular man that didn’t seem normal. I could have gone in and bought him the burger but I was tired and had to get up early the next morning so I didn't really want to put that much effort into the situation but I figured I could watch him go in the DQ in my review mirror and see if he actually bought food or not. So I opened my wallet, I was going to just give him a couple of bucks but right there on top was a 20 and I could see his eyes light up. “Crap” I thought to myself “there’s no good way to talk my way out of this, I’m going to have to give it to him. Oh well, he probably needs it more then I do anyway.” So I handed it to him and he launched into his sermon, to be honest I don’t remember much about it except at the very end he took my hand and made me open it, put the 20 in it and said “you have to keep your hands open for God to be able to put things in them.” Then he looked me dead in the eyes, smiled, and said “but you already know that, don’t you?” I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just smiled and nodded. He put the 20 back in his pocket and walked away. I got in the car, looked in the review mirror, and he was gone. I couldn’t find him anywhere, there was no way he could have taken off that fast, had he been an angel?

I don’t know, I probably never will know for sure but the principle of keeping my hands open has stuck with me and over time it’s developed into a way of life. The thing you have to remember about keeping your hands open though is that it’s not just about getting, it’s about receiving God’s decisions in all your life. Keeping my hands open means giving God full access to every part of my life, not just the ones where I want help. It’s easy to keep your hands open when God gives you something you like, but sometimes keeping your hands open means letting God take things out of them that you’d rather keep or receiving things you don‘t want. As Job 2:10 says “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" So keeping my hands open isn’t about getting what I want but rather acknowledging that every circumstance in my life comes from my heavenly Father which means it’s for my benefit.

Jesus pictured the hands open principle just prior to his crucifixion in Luke 22:42 when He prayed "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." Jesus kept his hands open to the point of willingly accepting his death. What did He receive in return? Eternal glory and honor. We were also blessed by His living with his hands open. It’s only through Jesus life, death, and resurrection that are sins are paid for. That leads to another reason we should live with our hands open, the benefit of others. When we keep our hands open and let God give and take things as He sees fit we are less likely to become attached to the things of this world and more likely to share with others around us, allowing us to bless them and encouraging them in ways we may never realize.

So instead of arguing with God the next time He does something we don’t like we should thank Him for the good things He has given us and ask ourselves, “What is God trying to teach me with this? How is this making me more like Jesus? Who can I bless through this?” That’s what living open handed is all about.