Thursday, November 21, 2024
And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you. Psalm 9:10
Live Open Handed
We have spoken this week about how everything we have belongs to God. Our money, possessions, our children, our family, our talents and gifts, and our time. All these parts of our lives belong to Him and if we are to be good stewards with all He has given, we need to honor and glorify Him in every way. That means living open handed and giving it all back to Him.
It is hard to open our hands and let go. We hold tightly trying to orchestrate the moments and events of life to fit into the ideal we have of what our lives, and those of our loved ones should look like. It’s not that we have ideals that would not honor God. It is that God’s ideal for us is that we loosen the grip, open our hands, and turn it all over to Him. He has good plans for us. He loves us and our children and families, and He already has the very best plans for all of us.
Have you ever stopped to talk to someone and the minute it happens you are kicking yourself because you know they are going to talk forever? That happened to me recently and I almost instantly thought, “I don’t have time for this.” As fast as I thought it, I heard God say plainly, “It’s not your time, it’s mine.” Time is one of the things that we need to be sure we are giving back to God. We live hurried and packed lives, always running from one place to the next. We sign our kids up for dance and baseball and track and basketball. We commit to serve (yes – a good thing if that is what God is telling you to do), to bake, to teach, and to carpool. We are over-committed and tired, thinking we are doing all the best things for our family. We leave no margin for God encounters or leading of the Spirit to help someone who needs us or just to talk to someone who rarely gets to have a conversation with another person.
God does want us to do all the good things for our families but most of all He wants us to be in communion with Him, listening and following His lead and living life open handed. We have spiritual gifts and talents to use for His glory. We know already that we are to be good stewards with our money and give the first tenth to Him. Sometimes if God is asking us to be open handed because He wants to take something out of our hands we don’t like it. But we can trust Him.
We should be good stewards with our talents and gifts. God gave them to us and He will empower and equip us to use them according to His plan. We just need to be open handed – surrendered and willing. When we try to find our significance and worth in what we can do, we find only emptiness. We only find lasting significance and worth in our Heavenly Father. Those gifts and talents came from Him to be used to glorify Him. It is the same for other things in our lives as well. If we try to find significance in our possessions or having lots of money we will only find emptiness there as well. Everything from Him, flowing back to Him, for Him, is the pattern of our lives when we live for Him.
If we would be completely surrendered and open handed with our whole lives we would be so amazed and blessed by what God does out of our lives. We miss blessings and opportunities from Him because we are closed fisted. We hold tight thinking we have some control.
What are holding onto? What are you not surrendering to Him? Time? Resources? Possessions? It is all His. Live open handed and walk into the abundant life of a yielded bondservant to the King you have entrusted with everything.
