Living with Open Hands
By Bethany Kaldas
The traditional pose of prayer is to kneel or stand with eyes closed and hands open. But we tend to pay more attention to what we’re praying for than how we’re praying for it. That’s because, usually, we’re praying for the things we want in our lives, and these things are very important to us. After all, we spend much of our lives trying to attain certain things—a good job, education, monetary security, friends, a family— even things like improving our services, bringing more people into the church, and so on. Most of our activity is geared towards achieving our goals and averting disaster.
Because I think each of us, when we think about it, has a picture of what we want our lives to look like. It’s only natural—it’s very hard to go anywhere if you don’t know where you’d like to be. And it can be very fulfilling when we strive for something and eventually achieve it. But sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we fail to reach the goals we’ve dreamed of. Sometimes we just don’t get that job we really wanted, we can’t get the grades we’ve been working so hard for, the relationship we had our heart set on doesn’t work out, that service we’ve been putting all our energy into still hasn’t gotten on its feet, that illness we’ve been fighting so fiercely keeps coming back. And when our dreams are broken, it often feels like they break a bit of us with them.
Let’s be honest here—one of the reasons these kinds of situations are so difficult is because, although we may never dare to say it out loud, we feel that we were owed these things that we worked for. There’s at least a small part of us that feels ripped off because we were denied something we saw as rightfully ours. This can even apply to the things we haven’t worked for—what we do with our time, for instance. Everyone’s felt that deep sense of frustration when we’re caught in traffic on a given afternoon. We think, ‘There are so many better ways I could be spending my time than just sitting here!’. The feeling that we possess our time is so prominent that C. S. Lewis even notes it as one of the tools used by tempters.
‘You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption ‘My time is my own’. Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours. Let him feel as a grievous tax that portion of this property which he has to make over to him employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which he allows to religious duties. But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright.’
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
It feels unjust when these things have been stolen from us, and sometimes it really breaks our hearts. It can leave us wondering, if God really loves us like a Father, if He really wants us to be happy, why does He let our dearest dreams be shattered? When we are in our darkest hour, and we pray for this cup to be taken away from us, we cry to the heavens for this ache to stop, why does the sky feel so painfully empty?
‘You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.’
James 4:3
This frustration is natural, it is worth expressing. It is not wrong to feel it and it is certainly not wrong to tell God exactly how you feel about it. You should. But perhaps this frustration comes from a misunderstanding—a misunderstanding about who exactly our lives belong to and what our role is in the whole thing. And perhaps, if we understood a little better, that ache of injustice wouldn’t have such a strong grip on us.
Because the truth is—the truth that we all say to others but often forget when it comes to our own circumstances—is that our lives were never our own, not really. From the very start, we were given our lives as a gift. You did not earn your existence—you literally couldn’t. And when we fall into the death of sin, we do not earn our return to life. That too is a gift. When He died on the cross for you, it was not because you had done all the right things to deserve your salvation. Nobody has—nobody could. We were given a chance to live not as a prize for all our good work, but as an opportunity to live with Him and for Him. And He is the one who knows the best road for us to walk, not us.
‘We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.’
C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock
To become the creatures we were always meant to be—to accept what God deems best for us—we must learn to let go. Let go of the creature that you were, let go of the things you believe you should have, of the way you believe your life should look. Because you are not your own creator, you are not your own teacher, you are not your own saviour. So, what makes you think that you truly know what you need to become what you are meant to be?
To think that you possibly could is such a great burden anyway. One of the reasons mishaps give us so much stress is because we, for some reason, believe that we are the ultimate masters of our own destinies—that our role is to carve our own path in our lives and that we have somehow failed in that mission. But to be able to put all of this into the hands of Another—that is perhaps the greatest freedom of all. To be able entrust your future to the God who knows you better than you know yourself is to truly be able to live.
And once you do that, you start to see things differently. Perhaps you might have felt God’s love when He gave you what you desired—and that is a wonderful thing. But once you loosen your grasp on your own desires and start to trust God’s plan for you, you realise that everything He has done for you is an expression of His infinite love.
‘But when you hold lightly these dreams and fears, you can be open to receive every day as a new day and to live your life as a unique expression of God’s love for humankind.’
Henri Nouwen, Turn My Mourning Into Dancing
Uncertainty about your future is a disastrously painful thing if you are alone, if you feel that you are the one who is meant to be in charge of your fate. The realisation that God is always with you, that He has not forgotten you at any point and that at every moment He is working all things for good—that is when such uncertainty becomes not a terror, but a joy. The great martyrs and saints of our church could only endure so much because they knew that God was with them every step of the way, and they could only possess such courage because they knew that no matter what happened, God would use it for something, even if they never saw the results themselves.
‘We cannot live a life of prayer, we cannot go ahead Godwards, unless we are free form possession in order to have two hands to offer and a heart absolutely open – not like a purse which we are afraid of keeping open because our money will drop out of it, but like an open and empty purse – and an intelligence completely open to the unknown and the unexpected. This is the way in which we are rich and yet totally free from richness. And this is the point at which we can speak of being outside the Kingdom and yet be so rich inside and yet also so free.’ (Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray)
He has plans for you. I promise. Even if things haven’t been going your way so far, even if you’ve been trying your best and nothing has worked out. Even if you’ve lost so much more than you thought you would, and the pain is crippling. He is not oblivious to your hurt, He is taking every broken step alongside you. Nothing that has happened to you has taken Him by surprise—He knew of it all before you were even born, and He knows that all of it can be used for your good—if you would just give it to Him. Just close your eyes. Open your hands. And let Him take you on the journey He knows is best for you.
‘Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.’
Ephesians 3:20-21