“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15, NIV).

On the last day of our Spring Canyon vacation with most of our children and all our grandchildren, after the adult time of worship and spiritual message, my son and his wife went to collect their two children from the children’s program. When they arrived, they saw the children and their leaders in a circle holding hands. They also noted that the two leaders stood on either side of their son, Bowen, with their hands on his head, rather than holding his. The parents thought the worst, assuming their son was in trouble and in special need of prayer with a laying-on of hands. When the prayer broke up, they asked Bowen what they had been praying about.

Bowen responded like a typical 8-year-old boy, “Just stuff.”

“No, really, Bowen, what were they praying for?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“Bowen, everyone was holding hands, but the leaders had their hands on your head. Why were they doing that?”

“Oh,” Bowen replied. “They said my hands were sticky.”

How sticky are your hands?

As followers of Christ, few of us go through life intentionally grasping the things of this world, but we are born with sticky hands.

My grandson didn’t intentionally have dirt, leaves and bugs stuck to his hands; they just got there as he played in the dirt. We don’t intentionally grasp the “…worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desire for other things…” (Mark 4:19, NIV); they just cling to us like thorns as we walk through the dirt of this world because we are naturally sticky.

I remember well the time in my life when I woke up with all kinds of stuff stuck all over me. It was a time in my life when I was “running and gunning,” loving my patients and loving the science of medicine (still do). Then I woke up one morning and discovered so much of this world clinging to me—big income, big home, big reputation, lake house—none of them bad, but all an unexpected accumulation, almost as if it had stuck to me when I was passing by without my ever thinking about it. I suspect it’s much the same for other sincere followers of Christ. We don’t go through life intentionally reaching for these things. The world just sticks to us as we walk through its playground.

The problem with my sticky hands was the same as my grandson’s. When superficial stuff clings to our naturally sticky hands, it is much harder to welcome the hands that reach to us in need, much harder to grasp the Hand that really matters and much harder to receive His blessings. My wife and I knew we had to make changes in our life, and we did.

Dear Father,

Thank you for cleansing my heart. Please continue to scrub my hands as the stickiness returns each day.

Amen