It's In the Hands

To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.

William Blake

"Infinity in the palm of your hand." Wow.

I don't know how many times my first husband, Steve, would look at his hands and lament with a decidedly disgusted tone, "My hands are so soft, no callouses anywhere, like a man who doesn't do hard work."

As his self-appointed encourager, I would gently chide him, "That's to be expected. After all, you are a minister. You don't get callouses studying and reading the Bible. When the need or occasion requires it, you work as hard as the next man."

And it was the truth. Steve never shirked hard work when it was before him. But the things that consumed the vast majority of his time—teaching and preaching in the local church and Bible school, traveling the length and breadth of Mexico to preach and teach and drum up students for the Bible school we worked with, itinerating—did not lend themselves to the development of callouses. He never responded to my attempts at solace, but his face spoke volumes. My words did not comfort him.

To be honest, I never "got it"—why did the state of his hands bother him so?—until our precious pastor shared a story about how telling hands are.

When he was a young man starting out in his working career, he and a friend applied for the same position in a certain company. At some point, the owner shook hands with both boys. As it turned out, our pastor was the young man chosen to fill the vacancy. Sometime later, he asked the owner what had tilted the matter in his favor. After all, the other applicant had been a little older and more experienced.

"It was your hands," the man explained. "When I shook your hands, they were calloused. They spoke of a young man who knew how to work hard. The other applicant had soft hands. I knew from your hands that I could depend upon you to work hard."

Ah .... decades later, I finally "got" why Steve abhorred his lack of callouses. The hands "tell" your work habits, they tell whether you are a hard worker or a lazy worker, a diligent worker or a haphazard worker. Although not an infallible indicator of work habits, as in the case of Steve, by and large they tell what kind of man—or woman—you are.

Unfortunately, laziness was a sensitive topic to Steve. As a young man, he had dragged his feet about obeying the call he felt to be a missionary—in large part because of lazy missionaries with whom he had rubbed elbows. (I knew the couple that had traumatized him and I am sad to say that, yes, they did not, in fact, have a good reputation.) Ergo, the last thing Steve wanted was to be associated in any way, shape, or form with anything remotely smacking of laziness. (Thank God he overcame his fears and eventually took the plunge to follow God's leading in his life.) On the other hand (no pun intended), to me, a woman who doesn't really care to have callouses on her hand, this particular "tell" on a person meant nothing. Until now. Now I get it. Hands do in fact tell about a person.

Which leads us to think upon Jesus and the story we read in His hands. What do they tell us?

Well, early on in His earthly journey we infer that His hands grew calloused from providing for His mother through carpentry work. However, this is merely conjecture based on the little we read about His early years. But in later life Scripture gives us a most definite and wonderful telling description of the state of His hands. It tells us that those precious hands bear permanent scars from His sufferings on the cross. Scars in which the name of each of those called by His name are engraved (Isaiah 49:16). Hands marked and scarred by love. Those are the hands of Jesus. Hands that tell of an incomprehensible, indescribable love.

Well did Blake write, "Hold infinity in the palm of your hand." I don't know if Blake had anyone in mind when he wrote that line, but it sure fits Jesus.

What exactly do we see in those hands? We see the infinite love of God: our restoration to Him, the tenets of His love for us, the completion of His plan for our redemption, eternal proof of the depth of His selfless love for His creation ... we see glory ad infinitum. Infinity in the palm of His hand.

My pastor in Mexico City used to encourage us to pray according to the precepts set forth by Paul in Ephesians 3, of which verse 19 reads, "And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." Apparently in order to reach our full spiritual potential we must be able to comprehend God's love. Such knowing lays beyond the boundaries of normal human knowledge; it can only be attained through seeking Him, through knowing Him—through understanding the story told in His hands.

So let us turn our eyes again and again to those holy hands. Let us dwell on the love extended to us through them. Let us allow that love to fill us, move us ... change us.

Thank you, Lord, for opening the eyes of our understanding. Thank you that now we see ... meditating on the glory of Your scar-marked hands is part of the road to comprehending Your glorious life-changing love.

"For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love" (Galatians 5:6).