Stretching Out Your Hand.

"Is this a day to save life or to destroy it?" Jesus

This popped out at me this morning during my lectio/meditation. Jesus was healing the man with a damaged hand on the Sabbath and some folks had a problem with what Jesus was doing. It wasn’t "law."

Jesus came to give life.

I think of the times that I am so eager to "save a life" when it is appropriate and fits my agenda, but I wonder how many times I destroy life by the things I say or don’t say or the things I do and leave undone. There was a time when I prided myself on my ability to destroy life with my intellect and words that cut a person in half, especially those I thought deserved it. By the grace of God I am less inclined to do this as often as I used to. Don’t get me wrong, I am no angel, but I guess there is so much hurt, pain and suffering in this world that I am sick of the fight. Personally I am sick of be a major contributor to destroying the life in others.

Every where I look I see wounded, hurt people and I have to ask myself how much I do to contribute to the pain and hurt? This isn’t a Sammy Super Christian guilt induced post. I mean what does my faith and my life count for if I am not conscious of Jesus’ question: "Is this a day to save life or destroy it?"

I am sick of the need to be right at the expense of making others wrong. The thing that pissed-off Jesus and disturbed him that day was the "hard hearts" of those who wanted to obey the law at the expense of a person’s soul. I just wonder when my hard heart angers or disturbs God? I am not fearful that God will destroy me in God’s anger, hell we don’t need God to destroy us, we do a great job of that on our own.

One day Jesus looked at me and said, "I am here to heal you. Do you want to be healed?"

"Yes, I want to be healed." I replied

"Stretch out your hand" Jesus encouraged.

As I stretched out my hand the rock fell from my palm and I was instantly healed.

I don’t think I am supposed to pick-up that rock again.
I think I am supposed to stretch out my hand and touch others with the fingers and hands of Jesus today. Not as a self-righteous or sugar-coated codependent, but like Jesus, in spite of the critics, simply to be a part of God's solution rather than be a part of the problem, because we all need to be healed.