A HEAVENLY CONSTRUCTION PROGRAM (3RD IN SERIES)

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HANDS

Faith is not an academic exercise.

Look down at your hands. Now raise them up. Now ball them in a fist and we all know what fists can do. Now put them together in prayer. Now extend one of your hands to your neighbor in an act of fellowship. Now hold your hands in your lap as if you reading a book.

Eight fingers and two thumbs: so describes your hands, which are really history books on review.

Look at them and let them remind you of all that they have done in your lifetime or left undone.

For yes, they have been servants of your thoughts and beliefs translated into action.

Now, still looking, ask yourself, how many have they helped? How many have they hurt?

When, and where and why? When you have extended them in acts of fellowship they were a blessing. When they have been extended in acts of major or minor violence they have been a curse.

Have they been giving hands? Or stealing hands? Hands that have held books of inspiration or books of filth? Have they written notes of thanksgiving to give joy or poison pen letters to destroy?

A surgeon’s hand holds a knife to heal. A murderer’s hand holding a knife to kill.

Hands tell us so much about a person. Clasping and unclasping, not at ease. Lying quietly, at peace with the world and God. Blasting a horn, giving a finger, sometimes much too angry.

There is a tinge of paint on the hands – an artist and the world is seen as a place of beauty.

He washes his hands over and over and over again. His name is Pilate and he cannot seem to ever wash them enough. For him, the world is a place of overwhelming guilt.

His hands are steady, persistent, patient, as he holds the sextant. Look closely for these are the hands of Christopher Columbus.

This hand pens a large, bold signature; large enough for fat King Charles to read without his glasses on. It is John Hancock’s hand signing the Declaration of Independence, and then passing on this great document for other hands to sign.

During World War II, Sir Winston Churchill raised two fingers to form a V for victory. And on the battlefields of that war, as done by countless generations before, so many hands were placed together in the sacred act of prayer.

Hands, they are our gift from God. We must make them a gift to God.

As legend tells it, many years ago in a certain church, on a very particular day, all the people were asked to bring great gifts to lay upon the altar.

All had been told that the greatest gift would cause a miracle. That at that moment a heavenly choir would burst forth with song.

And so they came, bringing boxes of gold, silver, jewels, and spices. All kind of wealth. A long line of hope and yet nothing happened. Silence. Unrelenting silence.

Then, slowly there came walking down the aisle a peasant girl. Her tattered clothes hung loose.

Her pale fingers almost luminescent as she moved toward the towering piles of magnificent offerings. Kneeling, she reached forward and put down…. her hands. . . and left them there.

For a long time she moved them not, offering them to God. They were all she had, and she gave them.

Then softly, at first no louder than a whisper, came the sound of a celestial chorus, building to a crescendo. The very walls reverberated with angel voices of acclamation. For yes, her gift was the greatest, the most wondrous; the gift of self.

Someone once wrote, “God takes a hand wherever He can find it. Here, the hand of a mother to guide her child; there, the hand of a neighbor to be a friend. The hands of those who believe.”

Why such emphasis on service? Because service is the rent we pay for the space we occupy.

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BELOW are QUOTES FROM THE Rust on my Soul Serialization (each Tuesday)

“I want to do more than just live. I want to be alive. I want to sometimes stand on that mountaintop. I want a song in my heart that makes my own personal Hit Parade.

I want contentment that is more than satisfied nerve endings. I want to feel the stretch of eternity in my bones.

This may indeed be more than I will ever find, but “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”

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To view an abundance of unusual stories and comments by Neil Wyrick go to Neil’s other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS

Click on the following URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

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NEIL’S 9TH BOOK “THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN” IS AVAILABLE ON Amazon.com’s KINDLE READER

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