Welcome to Goshen College’s Online devotional series for the 2009 Lent season! “Our lives are in your hands…” is this year’s theme taken from Mennonite Church USA worship resources. Our theme encourages us during the 40 days of Lent to follow Jesus more faithfully, knowing that our lives are indeed in God’s hands. Throughout the next five weeks on weekdays, 35 students, faculty, and staff will reflect on this as well as daily Scriptures and the seven weekly sub-themes: Teach me your paths; It depends on faith; My rock and my redeemer; By grace you have been saved; Whoever serves me must follow; Hosanna! Look, your king is coming; and, He has been raised.
Our lives are in your hands… A trusting metaphor, unless the hands extend from a suspicious stranger. A restful picture, unless the hands force their will and oppress those they get their hands on. A sense of security, unless it is from the latest corporate giant to collapse. A comforting image, unless the hands belong to a murderer.
What have been your “hand images” and how have they informed your own posture? I remember well those of two hands clasped together in prayer, two hands palms-up as an open gesture of invitation and two hands holding a resting newborn. What does it mean for us to place ourselves into the hands of a God who offers rest, comfort, challenge and encouragement with a posture of sacredness? Are you willing to place your lives in such hands?
PRAYER:
God, help us to muster the courage to place ourselves into your hands. As we rest in them, show us the way of faithfulness and guide us in following Jesus.