Little boys find things to do. I was around 5 years old when we lived on the farm. Our house was about 50 to 75 yards from the shop. In between the house and the shop was a pasture where I played dodge the patties. On this morning dad and the men had been repairing & replacing fence post. They had piled and set fire to the old post in the pasture…my playground.

There was a pitchfork lying next to the fire. I began poking and playing with the fire as boys of all ages will do. Then the pitchfork slipped and I fell into the bed of coals. I remember smelling my hands & belly burning and wondering how I was going to get up. Somehow, I did. While I was running to the house, I remember my dad scooping me up in his arms, opening the gate without dropping me. I knew he had me.

When I read, Isaiah 41:10 “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.,” I thought about dad and his hands. He had massive strong hands. Hands that could tighten a nut on a bolt without a wrench. He used the scared hands from work on the farm to build things of steel & wood. He used his hands to repair broken equipment…and with these same hands he gently loved my mother, my brother and me. Over the years I came to know I could always count on my dad. But my dad, like all of us, had his limits. He was human.

 As I think about it, God tells us so much about His Hands…His nail scared hands He loves us with. It all started in Genesis 2:7, “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” I believe He used His hands to create us “in His image” (Gen 1:27). We are personal to God our Father.

It’s the same hands found in Joshua 4 where God stopped the flooding Jordan River to allow His people, the Israelites, to cross over into the Promise Land. They build a memorial of stones from the riverbed to remember what God’s hands had done. In verse 24 we read why God did the impossible. “He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.” What Jordan River experiences do you need to thank God for His touch?

These are the same hands Jesus (who has risen from death) said to Thomas in John 20:26-27, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

It is those nail scared hands that paid the price for my sins that I claim the promise Jesus gave to all who Believe in Him, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.” John 10:28

This Christmas take a few minutes and consider “The Gift of Christmas” found in Johns 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Ponder these words Jesus spoke to Thomas, “Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Merry Christmas