His Great Hands

This. I have been at this point--the point where I understood fully all of my efforts over my entire life were not enough. That they never would be. That I had to choose to trust Jesus Christ to the point of placing everything I was into His hands, fully open to receive whatever He gave back, and to release the rest.

What God gave me in return for my heavy, broken heart is so much better than I ever could have imagined.

Your Great Hands 

I'm lookin' at the broken pieces
Life shattered on this empty floor
I've tried so hard to simply keep it
I know there must be something more

I'm here now to turn it over; complete surrender
Into Your great hands, I will place my trust
When I cannot stand, You will lift me up
Every failure, every fear, every step that led me here
All I am, into Your great hands

This goes against my every instinct
To loosen my grip and let go
But really all that I am risking
Is perfect peace in my soul

Into Your great hands, I will place my trust
When I cannot stand, You will lift me up
Every failure, every fear, every step that led me here, oh
All I am, into Your great hands

These hands that took the nails
These hands, they will not fail
These hands that bear my scars
These hands that hold my heart

Into Your great hands, into Your great hands
Into Your great hands, I will place my trust
When I cannot stand, You will lift me up

Every failure, every fear, every step that led me here
All I am, into Your great hands
Into Your great hands
Into Your great hands

 Our God is GOOD. When I took my life fully into my own hands and gave it to him, he began transforming it into something wonderful and beautiful, something supernaturally-empowered that increasingly baffles mortal wisdom. I love so many things that I was taught and gifted as a result of the faith and traditions of my fathers. And I simply will not trade for anything what I have now: this life of drinking from the firehose of the love of God, this life filled with wonders, healing, and intimate relationship with the God who gave himself for me on that cross. This life that is so full of the fulfilled promises of scripture that I can hardly count them all. I have the promises of God, spoken directly to me, sealed with the evidence he promised would come to those who believe. No words spoken by men can hold a candle to the blazing fire that comes directly from Jesus.

Jesus loves each of us with a love that encompasses and surpasses human love; not only in magnitude, but in scope. He is every bit as enchanted with you as you were with your first crush, every bit as eager to hear your voice and feel your eyes on him, to get you to notice him. He loves you with the undying love of a mother, deep and fierce. He loves you with the loyal and self-sacrificing love of a father, with the innocent and trusting love of a child, with the loyal and joyful love of a best, best friend, the kind of friend with whom you can do no more than exchange a glance and break out into belly laughs that take over and leave you both gasping. And so much more.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy. But Jesus came to give us life, and that MORE abundantly. Jesus came to give. Not to receive. He is not a distant, authoritarian deity that desires slaves. He is a tender bridegroom longing for his bride, a lion roaring terribly against the onslaught of the enemy, a lamb calling to us tenderly. He won the right, on that cross, to be with us always, no matter where our choices take us. And it is up to us whether or not we will turn toward him, ever present right in the middle of our mess, pursue him, and in so doing receive everything he has--everything the Father has.

Come, seek the Jesus of scripture, the Jesus revealed in the New Testament that told his disciples that if they have seen him, they have seen his father. Come discover the radical nature of his love, the love that makes into foolishness the wisdom of men, the love that requires no intermediary, no rites, no authority bestowed by men. Come drink from the fountain of living water and let it spring up within you to flow out in healing waves into the world around you, reclaiming the world that is already fully redeemed with the priceless blood of Jesus freely-given.