Good morning, everyone.
Our verse for today comes from Acts 12:1, “About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church.”
You probably know fairly precisely how long it takes to boil a cup of water in the microwave, even if you’ve forgotten what temperature turns the liquid into steam (212° Fahrenheit). Amazingly, though, on Mount Everest, where things are quite frosty at 28,000 feet, water actually boils at the modest temperature of 158°. It seems that the greatly reduced air pressure (Everest’s being only one-third that of sea level) lowers the boiling point significantly. So, despite the lack of oxygen and your body freezing in minutes, you apparently can get a pretty quick cup of coffee five miles up a mountain before you turn blue. One thing that doesn’t change way up there, I think, is the relationship between chocolate and people, scientifically speaking. I didn’t find any real research on the subject, but I’m pretty sure that chocolate, which ordinarily melts around 90°, would still melt if you held it in your hands for any length of time, provided you were in your warm tent and still had feeling in those hands. The 98.6° of the normal, unfrozen person is still too warm for the chocolate to endure. But those same hands, which in the sub-zero climate of Mount Everest desperately need to stay nimble and avoid frostbite while still not holding onto its chocolate for too long, are capable of almost anything in less extreme conditions.
At a piano, they can compose brilliant pieces of music. In a hospital, they can perform lifesaving surgeries. Holding a trigger, they can destroy life. And pecking away on a phone, they can send messages of kindness or hatred, and everything in between. Were these hands attached to a king, then like Herod’s, they could orchestrate terrible violence against whomever was chosen, even as they possessed the same power to deliver goodness and benefit if so desired. But your hands are not those of a king, nor are they suffering on Mount Everest. Your hands are those of a servant. Yours have been commissioned to wash feet, so to speak, and to point to a King who is full of righteousness. Your hands have much to do, but wringing with anxiety or frustration is not part of it. Too much is needed from the hands of Christ to spend time in worry and despair. So whatever your hands find themselves doing today, let it be done with joy and gratitude and honor to the King who spread out His hands for our salvation.
As we seek Him today, raise your hand if you can do something to magnify the Lord.
Have a great Tuesday.
#4 Rich Holt
Dad of Ripken, Koy, TrishaJean, Samantha, Kakie Holiday and Raleigh
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.
