God does not apply his hand only to chastise. He uses it to care for his people, too. The human hand has an amazing quality that nothing else has: tremendous efficiency of strength and yet total gentleness. (The nearest thing to it, incidentally, is an elephant’s trunk, but that does not come very close!) A hand is extremely strong for its size, and yet it can be most gentle. There is nothing as gentle as a lover’s hand. Thus, the hand of God can shake the world, but it can also express tenderness and love toward his individual children.
Sometimes we act as if God is the philosophic other or the impersonal everything, in short, as if he is only a word. The psalmist describes the wicked man who really believes this: “He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it” (Ps. 10:11). But the psalmist follows this with a contrasting statement: “Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up thine hand” (Ps. 10:12). With these imperatives, he is saying to God: “Act in the world to show people you exist. Show them that you can work in history, that you are not far off.” Then he cries, “Lift up thine hand: forget not the humble. Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God? He hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it. Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless” (Ps. 10:12-14). Let us never forget that in our poor world we are all fatherless, some more obviously so than others. But since God is immanent we can all cry to him.
Another psalm plays on the word hand: “My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me” (Ps. 31:15). The first clause of this verse, “My times are in thy hand,” expresses the realization, as up to date as tomorrow’s theological and philosophical discussion, that we live in a universe which we can speak of as personal, one which does not trap God in its machinery.
The second clause compares the hand of God to the hand of men. Men can take their hands and slap me across the face; they can tie me down and beat me. “O God,” the psalmist asks, “I often fall into the hands of men, but, O God, I put myself into your hand in the midst of the present space-time history.”
Psalm 37 expresses the same confidence in God’s care: “Though he [the righteous] fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand. I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread” (Ps. 37:24-25). The psalmist sees, as he reviews the past, that the Lord holds his own in his hand. This is not just a psychological projection, a blind leap in the dark, an upper-story experience which is not open to verification. It is the very opposite. We can look into the world and see God acting for his individual people through the might of his hand. A beautiful perspective, which suddenly changes the world. Instead of living in the modern consensus, surrounded by the impersonal, I live in a personal environment and am more than a speck tossed to and fro by impersonal chance.
But don’t the wicked often do well, too? Don’t the affluent wicked number in the millions today? The psalmist wrestled with this: “But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” (Ps. 73:2-3). But he reached this conclusion: “So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee. Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? … God is … my portion forever” (Ps. 73:22-26).
In the last clause of this quote, we see that the psalmist knows something else about God’s care for his children: It does not end at death. It carries them into a future beyond death. The affluent wicked will perish, but God will act on behalf of his child not only now but forever.
And as I raise my eyes and look at the environment surrounding me, it looks different. I live in a personal world, and God is dealing with me not for a few short years but forever. And I can make different value judgments as I look at the world because I understand that reality does not exist only between birth and death. A personal God is acting in a true history that goes on forever.
Not only does God care for his people throughout all time, he also can express his love for them no matter where they are located: “If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me” (Ps. 139:9-10). Conversely, the lost man cannot make his own universe even in hell, for “if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there” (Ps. 139:8). And this, I suppose, is the center of the hellishness of hell, that the rebel cannot make his own universe even there. But the same thing holds true for the people of God. As a child of God, I cannot go anywhere where God is not present to hold my hand.
In Psalm 143, David muses on God’s working in history: “I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands” (Ps. 143:5). And he sees that on the basis of God’s past activity he himself can do something in the present, existential moment: “I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land” (Ps. 143:6). David paints a marvelous picture here. As a person looks back at God’s actions in history and makes this his own environment, then he can have a positive reaction in this existential moment: As God’s child, he can raise his hands in personal confidence. This is the walk of the Christian.
Why does the boy out hiking with his father reach out his hand when they come to a slippery place? He does it because in the past his father has faithfully taken his out-stretched hand, and they have walked over the slippery trails together. This portrays the Christian walk with God, and the picture is beautiful. I raise my hand to my Father in personal relationship, and then walk with him hand in hand.
Author
Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer was widely recognized as one of the most influential Christian thinkers of the day. He was the author of twenty-two books which have been translated into twenty-five foreign languages, with more than three million copies in print.
Dr. Schaeffer had lectured frequently at leading universities in the U.S. and abroad. With his wife, Edith, the Schaeffers founded L’Abri Fellowship, an international study center and community in Switzerland with branches in England, The Netherlands, Sweden, and the U.S.
This article is taken from his popular book, No Little People, pp. 27-41.
