Walking With Christ

What are you doing with your hands?

We use our hands every day for a lot of things. Imagine for a moment climbing a mountain. You grab the rocks, ropes, and tools that will help you make the climb. While climbing this mountain, you can’t hold onto unnecessary things. It’s highly unlikely that holding onto a bottle of windshield washer fluid would help you on this climb.

Hebrews 12:1-2 (1)Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, (2)looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.(ESV)

Put it down. Let it go. If your hands are full of the things of the past, you’ll have no room to grab the hope for the future.

Philippians 3:13-14 (13)Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, (14)I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.(ESV)

“Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead”. The past is an anchor that wants to keep us from reaching the greatest of goals.

1 Timothy 2:8 I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling;(ESV)

Hands lifted in prayer, praise, and worship are a sign of our pursuit of God and His kingdom. If you are reaching out to God, that makes it a lot harder to hold onto things you never should have picked up in the first place. Letting go of those things that shouldn’t be in our lives allows us to serve more effectively. If our hands are not full then we can be “washing feet” for the kingdom. I would challenge anyone reading this to find at least one thing a week that you shouldn’t be holding onto. Find a burden from the past that still weighs on you. Silence one voice that is limiting you to who you were because they can’t appreciate who God wants you to be. Find one way to replace those things with something that will bear fruit for the kingdom.

I still struggle with some voices from the past. I still hear the echoes of the pain they carried. I am not who they say I am. I will not be who they said I will be. I will not water those weeds with my tears and ask that my children continue to care for the poisonous seeds of the past that so happily threaten to choke out the promise of our future. I will work to no longer carry water for the traumas of the past.

Father,
Some prayers are more difficult than others. Sometimes it is so hard to praise You and the wonderful things You have done in our lives because we are holding so tightly to the pain that we know out of a fear of the unknown. You are with us even in the darkest places in our lives. You want us to put down these heavy burdens. You want us to place them at Your holy feet. We were never meant to carry this weight. Yet, we still hold onto these things for all we are worth as if our lives depend on how much junk we can carry. Open our eyes, Father. Teach us that giving You our burdens is a form of worship. When we place these things at Your feet it is a form of sacrifice because we are giving up these things in order to be able to praise You or serve You. Remind us that when we give You these burdens that they are no longer ours and we should not try to take back what was given. Empty hands are free to praise and worship You as they should be. Empty hands are available to serve Your purposes for the kingdom and Your glory. Remind us that You can do more with the things we give You, even the burdens we tried to carry, than we could do with the entire universe. Remind us that You can only bless and multiply those things that we give to You. Thank You for the plans that You have for us. We open our lifted hands to praise and worship You.

In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.