Strong Hands & Wrestling Matches

I scrawl across torn notebook paper that I found in a camp cupboard. Five hundred teens and youth leaders race across a wooded campground, and I pause my conversations, my camp games, and my zip-lining to meet with God.

He's been calling me, and I needed to face the hard questions. Grabbing my ninth or tenth cup of coffee, I poured in creamers to make up for bulk-brewed coffee smoldering for hours over heat, and sat down at a sunny table near the fireplace.

"What's keeping you from total all-out radical obedience here, Jen?" God whispers, and I scratch across white and blue lines, daring to put into words what I have been afraid to speak aloud. In print, they are just as scary, but it helps somehow.

Three pages later, I am face to face with the Creator, and he still asks the hard questions. I answer honestly, and fold the papers up small, slipping them in my back denim pocket.

Three days later, in a tinkling Italian eatery over artichoke pizza and a salad sampler, I breathe deeply for courage and bare my soul to two close friends from college. With flaming face and staring at the table, I draw boxes with my finger on the black smudged table top, as I talk and cry.

They listen, ask gentle questions, affirm their love, pray for me, and urge me to obey the Holy Spirit's obvious promptings.

In the ancient book of Zechariah, there is a section that has grabbed my attention this weekend. Apparently, the Hebrew translation of the word "encourage" is "let your hands be strong" or "to strengthen the hands."

I love that when God talks to his people in this section, he tells them to not be afraid and to let their hands be strong. "Let your hands be strong," God says, as he asks his refugeed people to work on the temple/church there.

"Let your hands be strong and don't be afraid," he tells me today as I wrestle with obeying God in every part of my life, even the agonizing hard parts.  

I love that he tells us to encourage, or to strengthen the hands of, friends who need us. As we encourage, we help them have strong hands for the jobs set before them also.

Thankful for friends who do that to me, and for friends whom I have the honor of helping to strengthen their hands as well... I link with Ann, Duane, Shanda, and Imperfect Prose.

What are you learning this week, friend?

Photos courtesy of Microsoft Clip art.