Written on His Hands

My teenaged son has a bad habit of writing things on his hands. We'll be sitting across from each other at the dinner table, he'll reach for a napkin, and I see the tell-tale flash of blue ink. The ensuing conversation usually begins with my saying, "Really? Have you not been introduced to paper?"

Often his rejoinder is this: "Mom, the teacher was assigning the homework after the bell rang and we put our books away. I don't have time to get things out again. I didn't want to forget."

I was thinking about this the other day, remembering similar conversations held with my own mother when I was in high school. I remember that the things I would write on my hands were usually important things: phone numbers, homework assignments, tasks that I needed to remember. Sometimes, they would be messages from a friend. I don't know why it was so special if a friend wrote some silly word or drew a picture on my hand, but it was.

These were all things that I wanted to remember, and things that I would see over and over throughout the day. My hands were always there before my eyes. That same flash of blue ink was a vivid reminder of something I wanted to commit to memory.

This little trip down memory lane reminded me of one of my favorite scriptures. In Isaiah 49:14-16, we read: "But Zion said, 'The LORD has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me.' Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before Me."

God promises throughout the Bible that He will not forget His people or forsake them, though they may be tested, tried or even punished. When I read this particular statement of that promise, though, it is so much more vivid and personal: We are inscribed on God's hands. It isn't as though we are a bad memory that He has to remember, that He can't forget. If we are written on His hands, then surely it is a safe conclusion that He wants to remember us, that we are indeed something He treasures and does not want to forget.

We do not need to fear that God will forget us. Instead, we must take steps to remember Him, so that we are demonstrating our faith in His promises and our awareness that He is, indeed, with us. How? By doing the things He has commanded us to do and, as Paul writes, doing them with diligence, looking ahead to the full culmination of God's promises to us.

As we are written on God's hands, His words are to be written in our hearts and minds. Christ's sacrifice has made this possible, but God does not simply take permanent marker and write His words in us. We must also do our part and put the truth we know into action, allowing God to change us inside and out.

As we use our hands to minister to others and to do the work of God, let us remember that we are never in danger of being forgotten by the One who matters most. We are written on His hands. UN