Where To Find The Most Beautiful Picture Of Open Hands

My sister taught me to hold plans in open hands. Loosely. It’s a way to anticipate with joy yet trust God with the details. Hope and surrender intermingle as we relax our grip on outcomes and timing.

The visual works for the little things: the way we hope the day will go–efficient and relationship-rich–or our wish for one specific ingredient to be in stock. We have preferences, but they don’t get to tell us how to feel about our day, or about ourselves at the end of the day.

I’ve found that practicing an open-hands approach for the small things makes it easier to choose the posture for the stretched-long seasons and distant hopes: ongoing health battles, delayed dreams, unexpected detours.

We build muscle memory as we learn to trust God and stay flexible. We work hard but aren’t ruled by our to-dos. We adapt when our first-choice isn’t available, when someone else lets us down, when weather or sickness cancel our plans. There’s freedom in being willing to pivot.

There's freedom in being willing to pivot. (Twyla Franz quote)

Further, little teaches us the closeness and kindness of Jesus more than things that don’t go according to how we’d write the plan.

Maintaining an open-hands approach means we say yes to God-nudges–and keep saying yes over and over. Even when that seed stays dormant. Even when little makes sense. Even when we feel small and incapable.

Our loose-hold requires that we take agency but let go of the outcomes. Show up, but trust God’s capability.

Re-imagining Reputation

Open hands is a tender invitation to our souls, so needed that we’ve even got it as an emoji. It’s counter to the make-it-happen mentality also widely seen.

True, a lot rides on our carry-through. There are people we don’t want to disappoint and our own reputation at stake.

But what if our reputation was that we clung to hope even when right-now was rocky? That we banked everything on the trustworthiness of God? That we chose His timing even when it was costly? And also, that we knew God more intimately because our conversations were longer and more honest?

Consider how you might crave a role model this describes. Someone whose faith steadies everyone she encounters. Someone who brings hope into casual conversations. Who can’t hide the way she knows and trusts Jesus?

How would it bolster your faith if you were able to witness open-hands living when it was especially hard to tell God thanks? To trust what’s not-yet-seen?

Gradual Growth

My prayer is that you would become that person: a role model right in your home, your neighborhood, your community.

Me? You might say. I can see your eyebrow raise. The self-doubt shadow your face.

Yes, you. Because whatever we lean into, we become over time.

Whatever we lean into, we become over time. (Twyla Franz quote)

Just as the height of our children or the length of our hair grows at a near imperceptible rate when you compare to yesterday, so too can we grow in Christ-likeness gradually. Most often growth is a trajectory shift, not a single, wild leap forward.

What helps? Consistent practice.

The Most Beautiful Picture of Open Hands

To explain, let me share the most beautiful picture of open hands. Psalms 88:9 stilled me the other day as I was reading.

Like a worn cloth, my hands are

unfolded before You daily,

O Eternal One.

– The Voice

Here are hands so well practiced in relaxing into an open position that they resemble a worn cloth. Imagine the strength of the muscle memory that comes from such repetition!

Note how these hands are unfolded daily. On glorious days and mundane days. On days we see a glimmer of redemption and days we’ve barely got strength to reach for the light. On holidays and days of mourning and in-between days. Days of simple joys and days of frustration. Days of sleep deprivation and overbooked calendars and missed busses and all the demands–and days we laugh so hard we can’t catch our breath.

Open hands aren’t only for the rough patches, they’re also for the smooth seasons we easily take for granted. This posture helps us lean into gratitude, which always lightens the heart: “How happy are those who have learned how to praise You; those who journey through life by the light of Your face,” we’re promised (Psalm 89:15, The Voice). This is a consistent joy–untempered by the rise and fall of seasons.

The constancy of our contentment circles back to practice. We learn to praise God, learn to open our tight-fisted hands, through daily practice.

Relaxing Clenched Fists

What strikes me about this picture of open hands is that for hands to be unfolded daily, they must be balled-up daily too. I can relate to that. I’ve fallen prey to the lie that my effort can pave the way. I’ve assumed the fall-back plan is grit and perseverance rather than open hands.

What strikes me about this picture of open hands is that for hands to be unfolded daily, they must be balled-up daily too. (Twyla Franz quote)

If even the author of Psalm 88 had to repeatedly relax clenched fists, my own struggle to trust the plan God deems best can’t stop me from learning open-hands surrender. The same is true for you.

No matter what is hardest for you to hold up to Jesus, He welcomes your imperfect practice.

Take a deep breath.

Let your fingers relax and your shoulders rest.

Let Him take and rearrange what He will. Invite Him to speed up–or slow down–the timing according to His infallible plan.

Let’s pray.

Jesus, You already know what’s tucked inside our clenched fists. Fill us with courage so we may trust You with it. Help us to choose open hands daily until our fingers too become worn as cloth from repeated unfolding.

Just a friend over here in your corner,