The Lord’s strong hand

The Lord’s strong hand

The second in Colonel David Guy’s four-part series entitled Touched By God’s Hand

LAST week I suggested that human beings came to believe in God, not so much because they thought about the beginnings of the Universe, but because they were aware of a Presence that called to them, sought a response and touched their inner consciousness.

We also thought about the martial types who went with Saul because God had touched their hearts. But as I look at the Old Testament I realise the phrase ‘God has touched me’ is not common.

However, a number of verses refer to ‘the hand of God’ with the clear implication that the life of the speaker has been touched by divine power.

One of the earliest references will surely resonate with many Salvationists, who testify that God has drawn near to them while listening to music.

The prophet Elisha was asked to speak some words of encouragement to Joram, King of Northern Israel, when that somewhat inconsistent monarch was in a tight corner. Elisha did not feel like it at all, but when Jehosaphat, King of Judah, also requested his help, the prophet asked for a harpist. ‘While the harpist was playing, the hand of the Lord came on Elisha’ (2 Kings 3:15 all quotations from New International Version) and he knew what advice to give.

We are not all prophets. We do not all receive divine guidance through listening to music, but many could testify to becoming aware of God while listening to the band or songsters. Other Christian fellowships have their own musical traditions. A friend recently told me that he sometimes accompanies his son to an Anglican cathedral. The son is not overtly religious but is drawn by the music – ‘The message rubs off on him.’ The touch of God is given in many ways.

The hand of God is also the bestower of divine power. Indeed, where some translations use the word ‘hand’, other versions say ‘power’. On occasions the close link between hand and power is spelt out.

Isaiah testified: ‘This is what the Lord says to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of this people’ (8:11). Only when he had been reminded of the presence of God was the prophet ready to hear the call to stand alone – refusing to agree with the views and attitudes popular or accepted among his contemporaries; enduring the ridicule and even danger that such a stand could bring.

Here, feeling the touch of God’s hand is associated with being strengthened to stand out from the crowd. However, that is not the whole picture. While religious experience is personal, it is never individualistic. It may be divisive in that it can separate from the heedless throng, but it also leads into fellowship with others who have felt the same touch upon their lives.

When the 70 years of exile in Babylon ended and the Jews were free to return to Jerusalem, Ezra the priest faced the challenge in this way: ‘Because the hand of the Lord my God was on me, I took courage and gathered leaders from Israel to go up with me’ (Ezra 7:28). So the man or woman who has been touched by the hand of God will not necessarily become a hermit; the person concerned may even become a recruiting sergeant!

One more aspect of experiencing God’s touch I dare not ignore. When Job lost his children, his health and his wealth, his so-called ‘comforters’ told him it was a punishment for sin. Job denied this and at one point cried out: ‘Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me’ (Job 19:21).

Though the Book of Job makes clear that God did not send sufferings upon him as a punishment, he certainly allowed them as a test (see the opening chapters).

We still face the paradox that a God who loved us so much that he gave his Son for our salvation allows us to suffer – some more than others, some terribly, none altogether exempted. When we are touched in this way our faith is certainly tried, but we hold to the belief that God permits our trial with a loving purpose in mind (see Romans 8:28).

Next week we move to the New Testament and the touch of God through Jesus

• Colonel Guy lives in retirement in West Wickham