Rough Hands

Daily Reading: Isaiah 49

Scripture Focus: Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. (Isaiah 49.15-16)

Devotional Thought: When I was younger, I used to look at the age spots on older folks hands and think, "I hope my hands never look like that."  Well...  suffice it to say that things didn't turn out quite as I had hoped!  When I look at my hands now, I remember reading something like this somewhere: "His hands were rough and cracked.  There was dirt under his nails.  Her hands were calloused and worn.  Yet there was nothing better in each of their minds than the thought of holding one another's hands on their journey through life together."  It makes me thankful for two sets of old hands!

Do you remember what Thomas said when he was not there with the other disciples when Jesus appeared after the resurrection?  "Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe" (John 20.25).  When Jesus appeared to the disciples a week later, Thomas was there, and Jesus said, "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe" (John 20.27).  Those hands were beautiful to Thomas, and he cried out, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20.28).

Do you ever think about the hands of Jesus?  They are rough and cracked.  They are scarred with the imprint of nails.  Yet, they are the most beautiful hands in all of creation.  With those hands Jesus shed his blood, laid down his life, and rescued us from death.  With those hands, Jesus will gather us all to himself to be with him forever and ever!  Amen!

Prayer: Thank you, Jesus, that your hands are engraved with the scars of love, wounds put there because of my sins.  You suffered and bled and died for me.  I pledge to live for you.  Amen.

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 78.40-49

40 How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert!

41 They tested God again and again and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

42 They did not remember his power or the day when he redeemed them from the foe,

43 when he performed his signs in Egypt and his marvels in the fields of Zoan.

44 He turned their rivers to blood, so that they could not drink of their streams.

45 He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them, and frogs, which destroyed them.

46 He gave their crops to the destroying locust and the fruit of their labor to the locust.

47 He destroyed their vines with hail and their sycamores with frost.

48 He gave over their cattle to the hail and their flocks to thunderbolts.

49 He let loose on them his burning anger, wrath, indignation, and distress, a company of destroying angels.