Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.” 1 Peter 5:6-7
When a sister in the Lord with a disability told me how she had to repent before God and apologize to her caregiver for pushing away her caregiver’s hand which her caregiver had reached out to her in an effort to help her, the Holy Spirit moved sweetly, tenderly on my heart as unexpected words gushed from my mouth.
“The next time you think about pushing away your caregiver’s hand, you might want to consider you might be pushing away the hand of God,” I told her emphatically.
I had been telling my friend in recent talks about the danger of pride and how God detests it, and how it precedes destruction (proverbs 16:18), and how we need to continually humble ourselves before Him. In this conversation, I told her how I have cried out incessantly to God sometimes for Him to send me help, but struggled at times with resisting the help He sends me. Most importantly, most tragically, sometimes I have pushed away God Himself. Surely I am not alone in this. Am I?
We all have our disabilities, don’t we? Perhaps not physical. But in some way, shape, or form, we have our challenges, hurdles, trials, tribulations, struggles, shortcomings. How many of us cry out to the Lord to help us? How many of us humbly and thankfully receive the help He sends us? How many of us above all else receive with willing and thankful hearts the help and salvation of the Lord? How many of us resist the hand of God?
Are you pushing away the hand of God? In pride, sometimes we place our trust in ourselves. When we humble ourselves before God, we acknowledge there is no greater love, no greater mercy, no greater grace, no greater peace, no greater hope, no greater comfort, no greater friend, no greater advocate, no greater counselor, no greater leader, no greater refuge, no greater strength, no greater healer, no greater caregiver than the Lord, and no greater hand than His. Let us humbly thankfully receive His helping hand, including when it comes through the heart and hand of a human reaching out to us.