Hold Your Out Your Hand

My sister Charissa

Over the holidays I heard my sister Charissa say more than once, “I’m holding it loosely.” 

She used this to refer to her clothes, her car, any one of her belongings. 

I never got the chance to really ask her about this, but from the manner in which she spoke I gathered it was something that God was teaching her. 

That phrase has stuck with me. It comes into my head when I look through my room at the clothes, books, and belongings that I have amassed. It comes into my head when I look my bank account. I think of it when I look at my time and try to put a value on it. It comes to mind when I see the different plans for my future start to roll through my head. 

Tonight, it came into my head again as I measured my life against the standard that the world expects of me. As I held those two lives up to the light and saw the checklist of things I need to do to be considered a responsible adult (i.e have a steady bank account, car, plan etc) I wondered if I should cut out things like weekend road-trips and buying art supplies to more quickly achieve this goal. Then the image of an open palm came into my head.

I have no guarantee of anything. Not one millisecond into my future is guaranteed, so why live in any time other than right now?

I don’t think planning is wrong. There are plenty of things in life that require planning, but if I live my life in the present, living to the fullest where God put me and trusting His plan, then I have to trust it fully. Somehow we, or at least I, get the idea that we need to worry about the details. Like God will tell us to move somewhere, but not give us time to make the proper preparations. Now, granted, maybe God’s preparations look different than our own, but they are still accounted for. 

Tonight I tentatively stated to myself that I need to hold everything loosely. Then, as I normally do, I began to argue with myself. What about God? Don’t I need to hold everything loosely, but God? Don’t I need to hold on to God with all my might?

What if God saw fit to move me like this?
In real life - this would be drastic, but so exciting!

No. And the reason is in the question. “my might”.

I can not, nor will anyone ever be able to hold God. God is so far above. He is infinite, transcendent, self-sufficient, self-existent. He never changes. I willnot, I do not,  I can not hold God.

God holds me. He pursues me. He fills me. When I hold my life in an open hand, and relax, God can more easily move me. When I build my life not on the expectation of the fulfillment of my plans, but on the expectation of the fulfillment of God’s promises, I can not be disappointed. When I find joy, not in expectations put on the people around me, but in the expectation of God’s character, I can never be hurt. 

Now, I am human. I will never be able to purely rest on God. My flesh will bring in challenges. I will feel the emotion of disappointment, and hurt. I will be sad. I will be frustrated, I will be angry, but if I practice living life with an open palm, how quickly will the power of God whisk those emotions away?

So I will live open. I leave room for God to move. I will strive to quiet the checklist of the world and listen for the prodding and movement of the Spirit. Because that is where I find joy, and peace. That is what I crave. That is where I belong. That is where I find home.