Stretch out your hand

Stretch out your hand. 

Critics play an important role in the music world.   They help the public to evaluate what is good, and by doing so, they set standards for music.   But critics can also be closed to anything new or different.   For example, one of Bach’s students called his music “turgid and confused.”   A contemporary of Mozart called his music “overloaded and overstuffed.”   One critic said of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: “It was hard to figure out what all the noise was about.”

You could say that some Pharisees of Jesus’ day had become like those critics.   In their zeal to preserve the Law, they had attached their own limited expectations to it.   One of those limitations was that they taught that curing the sick was forbidden on the Sabbath—unless the sick person was in danger of death.   The man whom Jesus healed in the synagogue had only a withered hand, so that clearly didn’t qualify.   These Pharisees weren’t willing to admit that God could go beyond their assumptions of what the Law was all about.

This attitude can affect us as well. We can view our own assumptions about God as being the only thing that matters, and end up limiting him as a result.   But our heavenly Father wants to take us beyond our expectations, both of who he is and of who we can become.   He is not interested in healing you just enough so that you can squeak your way into heaven. He is a generous Father.   He wants to fill you with so much grace that you dance through his gates joyfully, bringing countless people behind you whose lives you have touched!

Do you think it’s possible that you can know the Lord even more deeply than you do right now?   Do you think it’s possible that you might be able to pray with someone and see them healed?   Don’t be like those music critics with their limited expectations!   God has great plans for you.   So go ahead and stretch out your hand in faith and see how God fills you with his life, his love, and his power.

Word Among Us