Paper Hand cut out

The bag has been replaced by a small cardboard box, and this week I pulled out the last thing I expected. The girl who brought it in had traced her hand, cut it out, and wrote "Helping Hand to God From Susie (Not her real name)" on it. I stood there trying to figure out how to say what was in my head.

When you undertake a task like this, sermons on the spot based on a random object, your mind goes places during the week. You think about possible things that could appear when you open the box. There are rules, nothing alive, nothing that was alive, and nothing that came from anything alive, but outside of those three things anything goes.

As I looked at this little paper hand a verse came to my mind that I had found my freshman year of college. "...still another will write on his hands, 'The Lord's..." (Isaiah 44.5b). It was at 1:29 am on December 9, 2005 that I read that. I know because I still have the piece of cardboard I traced my hands on and wrote "The Lord's" on. That verse is there, along with my signature and the time and date.

There is also a prayer, "Lord, take my hands, they are yours. Use them for your service, may they always do your will. I want to be your hands." That was at the begining of my preperation for ministry. And now close to six years later, I still want that to be my prayer.

God take my hands and make them yours. Use me to be your hands. Help me to go where you would go, and do what you would do. May I serve as you would serve. You gave your hands to the nails to save me. Take my hands to your service to serve the world.

After the short sermon the kids kneel at the altar and we pray together. My prayer this week was that God would take all of the little hands around that altar and use them for His Kingdom. That these little hands would come to serve Him at a young age.

Will you let God have your hands?

Peace be with you