open hands

Put your hands in front of you where you can see them.  Are they open?  Are they clenched in tight fists?  Are they somewhere in between?  Several months ago, God started talking with me about loving with open hands.  He showed me my own hands, open and palms facing up (in human anatomy it's called supinated), and He said, "This is how I want you to love." 

In my usual style, I've been slowly processing that...thinking, talking, and asking questions.  I think I am starting to understand what loving with open hands means.  The opposite would be loving with clinging hands that hold on tightly to the people we love.  Clinging hands are fearful...afraid of being hurt, rejected, or abandoned.  Clinging hands are controlling.  Clinging hands put us AND the people we love in bondage.  No one is free to be himself or herself.  No one is free to love.  And no one is free of fear.

God loves us with open hands.  He wants us to enter His embrace, to love and to be loved, but He gives us freedom to choose.  He gives us grace to come back to His open hands each time we go our own way.  He doesn't cling or control us. In John 13:34, Jesus said to his disciples, "Love each other.  Just as I have loved you, love each other."  Jesus loved His people with open hands, allowing them to make their choices and make mistakes, but He always received them back with open hands.  He is our role model.  He wants us to choose to be more like Him.

Open hands allow us to give and receive love.  Open hands give freedom.  Open hands are trusting.  Open hands are a sign that we are living in the perfect love of God which expels all fear.  (1 John 4:18)   Jesus lived and died with open hands, loving us into eternity.  I want to be more like Jesus!