In The Hands of The Father

When placing things, whether that be people, situations or materials in the Lord's hands, I am reminded of a child at the park. An object catches her eye and she picks it up. This object becomes her "treasure" and she clutches it tight while continuing to run and play. 

Eventually she realizes she may lose it while playing. Running up to her father, the child places her “treasure” trustingly into his hands. Why does she do that? How can she confidently walk away when it is no longer in her hands?

The child is able to do this because she trusts her father.

She knows it is safer in his hands than in her own. If she did not relinquish her right to hold onto her “treasure,” she may very well lose it. The best place for it is in her father’s hands.

I had my own “treasure” that I knew was best in my heavenly Father’s hands. If I did not want to lose it, I had to surrender my “right” to hold onto it and lay it in His hands. As I daily released it to the Lord, He painted the beautiful image of the child and Father in my mind. I used it to encourage myself that as I was surrendering, things would turn out well. 

In my human thinking, I believed (without truly realizing it) that if I was not clinging to my “treasure” but placing it in my Heavenly Father’s hands, then the Lord would let me keep it. Just like the child, I didn’t want my treasure lost, so I had my Father hold onto it for me. Yet mine was a false surrender.

While I believed my motives to be pure, I had an unexamined heart when it came to my real reasons for surrendering. Was it to truly surrender to the Lord, or so that I could say I was “surrendered” while still keeping a hold for later?

I have often had this fear of God taking certain things away from me if I held too tightly to them. I tried hard to keep anything important to me at an arm's length so that it would not be considered an “idol” and therefore taken away. I did not see that this is not the Father’s heart towards us.

Shortly after, in His grace and love, My Heavenly Father decided the “treasure” He held onto for me had to be left behind. While I was hurting and processing over this parting, He completed the picture He had begun for me a month ago.

When it is time to leave the park, the child runs to her father and eagerly holds out her hand to receive the “treasure” she had entrusted to her father. She stands before him; arms outstretched. Tenderly, the father places his hands on her shoulders and says, “We need to leave this behind.” 

Without explanation, he sets it down and leads her home. As she takes his hand, the child looks over her shoulder at what was once her “treasure.” Was she wrong to place it in her father’s hands? She may have lost it if she held onto it, but she believed if it was in her father’s hands, they would have been able to take it home together. Was she wrong to have trusted him?

While initially the child is disappointed about leaving it behind, she takes her father’s strong hand and continues home with him. She does this because she trusts him.

This second half of the picture was profound as it revealed my lack of understanding my Heavenly Father’s heart.

Just because you place it in the Father’s hands, does not mean you will be able to keep it. Surrender is surrender. It is not for safekeeping, it is relinquishing. Letting go of your “right” to hold on; knowing that your Heavenly Father, in His infinite love and wisdom, may decide it is not His best for you. 

Complete surrender is trusting in His love and control over your life. Anything less than trust is a “false surrender.” A false surrender claims, “Here Lord, I will let You hold onto this but it is still mine.” How often I do this!

Does God take things away from us when we hold them too tightly? Is it not because a parent knows what is best for their child that they take or keep anything from them? That is love—and our response to His love is surrender.

It is not about Him “taking” things from us; He desires that we freely relinquish our “treasures” in worship to Him.

As I do this, I begin to see that all along, He is the only treasure my heart truly longs for.

“Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You.”  Psalm 73:25