THE POWER OF HANDS

On Thursday evening I was taking what has become a fairly regular flight back from Schipol Airport, Amsterdam Holland, to Norwich in Norfolk England. For this trip I was sitting in row 17 - an aisle seat - that is at the very back of the aircraft and as this was a small Focker 70. As the engines blocked the rear windows I wasn't really able to look out at the nights skies during the short 30 min flight home.

As I sat in my seat I looked down the length of the cabin and observed the stewardess speaking to her colleague. I had no way of knowing what she was saying, and I certainly cannot lip read, but I was fascinated by the amount of hand gestures she made during what was clearly animated and happy conversation (she laughed a lot) and it got me to thinking.

I am not sure there are many (if any at all) converstaions that I have where I do not use my hands in some way. And I am sure that is probably true for everyone. We use hands to emote anger, compliance, frustration, sympathy, hate, love, disspaointment and celebration. They say nothing at all yet they say so very much.

I stayed focused on our hands and our use of them and turned my mind to thinking how Jesus used His hands whilst He was here on Earth.

Apart from the one incidence where He "cleared the church" of money lenders and traders who had defiled the sanctuary in favour of personal gain and profit, and so He turned over the tables; obviously using His hands, in what could be described as anger, at all other times He used His hands for positive and powerful means. This is how it rolled out for me:

• He used hands to feed the hungry - He took the five loaves and two fish and broke it all up and fed the 5000 gathered to listen to Him
• He used His hands to heal people on numerous occasions
• In His early years he would have used His hands in practical ways as the son of a carpenter
• He used them in prayer
• He used His hands to break bread with His freinds

So He used His hands in practical and spiritual ways. And as always He should be our pattern for how we live. We can add to the list the lifting of hands in praise and worship as we are called to do in the Psalms and I am sure during the times when Jesus would spend time with His Father He would have lifted His hands too.

There is real power in the way we use our hands. So we need to ensure that we are using our hands for the benefit of others wherever possible and not for our own benefit. Let us persue the pattern that has been set for us by Jesus, our example.

Oh and He used His hands for one other thing too..................

He stretched His hands to the left and to the right, and as they drove in the nails He was saying "I love you this much"

Blessings