Holding Hands

I once knew a teenage girl who said she wasn’t going to hold hands until she was married!

When she became involved in her first real relationship, however, she discovered her boundary was a bit restrictive.

The reason is fairly obvious. When you grow fond of someone you want to let them know. Calling on the phone or passing notes in class just doesn’t cut it once you’ve been bitten by the love bug.

You want to show your affection with a gentle touch. And then—oops!—you’re holding hands.

One of my favourite characters in the Bible is Cyrus. Cyrus was a hand holder and didn’t even know it (kind of like my friend). One hundred years before Cyrus was born God named him and called him God’s anointed (a title usually reserved for God’s kings and prophets). Then God made a futuristic promise that started “to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of. . . .” Cyrus didn’t know it, but God had a thing for him!

Cyrus didn’t worship God. Actually, history tells us Cyrus worshipped many gods. He worshipped whichever god (or gods) that made the people happy and kept them paying taxes. You see, Cyrus was a king, and not just any king. He was the king of the Mede and Persian Empire that overthrew Babylon the night that God’s hand wrote on the wall of Belshazzar’s party hall.

And what did the hand of God write? You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting. Tonight your kingdom will be given to the Persians.

On that night it was good to be the king—if you were Cyrus. Not so good if you were Belshazzar.

Cyrus’s army walked into Babylon through the Euphrates river gate that had been accidentally left open by celebrating soldiers. They marched into the palace and crashed the party.

The amazing thing about this whole story is that God had prophesied the entire thing: the open gates, Cyrus’s kingship, and even his failure to acknowledge that it all came from God.

The life of Cyrus embodies the phrase, “God uses whom He chooses.” Sometimes God will go so far as to bless and strengthen even those who don’t know Him. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. And sometimes it pours.

God got his hands dirty with Cyrus. The Creator touched the untouchable. He wrote Cyrus’s future on the wall of a Babylonian palace with His outstretched finger. He scribbled his life story into prophecy through the pen of Isaiah.
And when the time came to make it happen, he held Cyrus’s hand.

I like that. I really do. It shows that God isn’t about control. He’s about relationship. And He can relate to you and me even if we don’t fully grasp who He is or what He is about.
He holds hands with the just and the unjust. Because He can.

Bible quotations are from the NIV.

Check the Word:
The Prophecy:
Isaiah 44:28–45:13
The Fulfilment:
Ezra 1:1-8