Inconceivable

Inconceivable

16  Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
(Isaiah 49:14-16)

In his commentary (Note on the Bible) on this passage, Albert Barnes writes “the language [of the above verses] is that of complaint, and expresses the deep feeling of the people of God amidst many calamities, afflictions, and trials.”

I can be a whiner at times. “Why is so and so blessed with the means to buy whatever he wants? So and so is really intelligent. Why am I not as smart as he is?”  Why do the neighborhood’s herd of deer eat my plants and no one else’s? Then there are the days that I feel as though God has forgotten me. “Why aren’t my prayers answered? Where are you God? Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10)

Then I read that my name is indelibly engraved in the palms of God’s hands. To engrave a stone, a monument, a piece of jewelry, means that the inscription is permanent. Nothing can erase an engraving. Thirty some  years ago when we paved our front driveway, we had our children press their small handprints into the muddy-grey concrete. Their imprints are still visible, and will be visible for years to come. To think that God has permanently engraved his hand with my name is in the words of Princess Bride’s Vizzini: “Inconceivable!”

Inconceivable as it may sound, it is true.  J.I. Packer calls us to affirm the truth that "I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him, because He first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, One Who loves me; and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when His care falters ( Mt 10:30-31)."


My name was not impulsively tattooed on the outside of God’s hand; my name is engraved in the palms that are imprinted with the nails of Good Friday’s rugged cross.  One commentator supposes that such an engraving is an allusion to some practice common among the Jews at that time, of making marks on their hands or arms by means of punctures in the skin with some sign or representation of the city or temple, to show their zeal and affection for it.  The engraving of our names in his palms is not a sign of God’s affection for a city or a church, but a holy representation of God’s zealous, relentless love for you and me. “Inconceivable!”

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