The Finger of God

God’s hands are always at their work. He started early, on the sixth day, shaping man from the dust of the earth. A little later he removed woman from the side of man. From the very beginning God’s hands have shaped our lives, marking who we are and communicating who He is. The divine hand is always present, but it is when we behold the omnipotent finger clearly that we tremble.

Sometimes in joy, sometimes in fear.

The Babylonians were engaged in drunken revelry when the finger of God made its appearance and terror descended.

Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote. Then the king’s color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together. The king called loudly to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the astrologers. The king declared to the wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this writing, and shows me its interpretation, shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around his neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.” Then all the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or make known to the king the interpretation. Then King Belshazzar was greatly alarmed, and his color changed, and his lords were perplexed.

With those fateful words the divine inscription sealed the end of the Babylonian kingdom.

But the finger of God can bring better tidings, too. When God met with Moses to institute the covenant with Israel we are told:

And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.

This glorious meeting is summed up in the following observation:

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.

When the hand of God moves and His finger scribes for good then faces do shine gloriously.

But God writes on more than plaster and stone. The very God who shaped humankind and directs the course of every life also writes on hearts. After Moses there was a future promise:

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.

When God writes on hearts, lives are transformed.

The very God who shaped man from dust and drew woman from man–the God who wrote words of hope and words of judgment in stone and plaster–this very God stoops down to write on hearts. It is a marvelous thing, a great and glorious mystery. Even now still the finger of God writes love in hearts. Love for Him, and love for each other.

It is a strange and astounding thing to feel the finger of God tracing love for Him in the heart–a divine reshaping which utterly changes a person, never to be the same again. When the divine fingerprint rests upon the soul we tremble. In those divine imprints love and life blossoms.

And now I can tell you it is also a marvelous and astounding thing to feel the finger of God tracing love for another in the heart. To come to know a profound love for a woman is to experience in another unique way the finger of God upon the soul in a reshaping that changes life to never be the same again. That is when love descends.

Whom God drew out from the side of man He brings back to the place created for it. The One who shapes hearts also in His own good time and own way traces love as He sees fit. As that divine finger traces joy in the very contours of our heart we behold, we wonder, and we tremble for joy.

The God who shaped man and woman in the beginning still shapes them today, and gives them one to another. It is a profound mystery, and it is an awesome thing to know that the God who began a good work is still continuing it–making hearts whole, and knitting them together.

What He gives can only be good.

Drawn together

 

4 thoughts on “The Finger of God

  1. wil

    One of my residents had your book, and an LPN picked it up, read the back, and was like sounds like a good read 🙂 really cool

  2. Cynthia

    I rejoice with you both that God has brought you together for his glory and for your joy!

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