January 12, 2011

Nehemiah 2
I remember watching an episode of MASH where Hawkeye was sitting on his bunk looking at his hand and then began discoursing on the marvels of the human hand. I remember very few things about MASH, but for some reason that little soliloquy has stuck in my mind. Have you ever thought about the wonders of the hand? As I type, I am arthritis free and injury free. My fingers fly over the keyboard without me really even thinking about where the fingers should go. I just think the words, and my fingers seem to go there. There is no hunting and pecking. They just go. It is natural for my hand upon the key board. How does that happen? Does it not make you marvel?
Is it natural for the “hand of God” to be upon us? Apparently it is not natural. Why? Even Nehemiah seems to think it important to twice say, “the good hand” of my God was upon me. Does God have a bad hand? Obviously this is a figure of speech. But none-the-less figuratively speaking, does God ever have a bad hand upon us? If a human hand is a thing to marvel about, and it is, then how much more should be the hand of God a thing about which we should marvel? And in light of our sin, how much more should we marvel at His good hand upon us.
One thing is clear from this passage, when we are in line with the purposes of God, we can expect “the good hand” of our God to be upon us. What does it look like? I don’t know, but for Nehemiah it looked like the favor of the king when he did something very dangerous. He allowed himself to look sad in the presence of the king. It meant that the king granted his request to give a decree to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem (a prophecy of Daniel 9). It meant a perilous journey to Jerusalem. It meant an undercover tour at dark of the walls of Jerusalem. It meant talking the residents of Jerusalem into a dangerous act. It meant opposition from the non-Jews in Judea. But God’s good hand upon Nehemiah made his fingers fly to the task. It started the building of the walls and the countdown to the cutting off of the Messiah, the cross. Isn’t God’s hand good? Because Jesus went to the cross, we live! Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john