Gloves On the Hand of God

Christians are like gloves on the hands of God: the closer we conform to Him the more effectively He can work through us.

We are like mittens if we insist on ordering our lives for our own ends. God is inside us, but like a hand inside a mitten, His true nature is only roughly observable. And just as a mitten’s very shape limits what the hand inside it can do, our failure to yield to God’s purposes limits His ability to act through us. Sure, He can accomplish some things through us, but not much.

Or maybe we are like thick wooly gloves. We try to live according to God’s direction, but let ungodly things occupy prominent places in our lives. Or maybe we are so busy that we can’t get as close to God as He would like. Either way, the result is a loose fit, with a lot of stuff between us and what God wants to grab through us. We are better than mittens, but surely not as effective as we could be.

But perhaps we are like leather work gloves, those yellow rubber gloves we’ve all used from time to time, or maybe even surgical gloves. God can get a lot done through them. The reason they are so effective is that they closely conform to His hand, are tough enough to stand up to the task and put function over fashion. Those attributes allow God’s people to really get into the muck and clean up the parts of the world He wants to reach.

Finally, just like gloves, our usefulness has nothing to do with our outward appearance. A mitten is still a mitten and a surgical glove is still a surgical glove, regardless of its color. Its utility depends on how closely it conforms to the hand inside it, not what’s visible from the outside.

(Images about conforming/yielding to God were posted September 12a, 18a, 18b, 18d, and 23; October 3 and 3a, November 6; and 21, December 8, 12, and 15, 2004 and January 10d, February 18, May 11, June 18 and 27; August 21 and 27; and October 3, 2005.

Images dealing with winter related themes were posted September 12a, November 27 and December 12, 2004.)