Sticky Fingers

April 5, 2008 – 8:49 pm

Anyone who has had small children or cared for small children, knows the challenge of sticky fingers. The child’s hands have been who-knows-where and it’s at that precise moment, when all the gunk and gook is mixed together that they feel a need to grap your pants leg and tug for something. The green goo is engrained in your clothes and the timing couldn’t be worse as you’re about to head out with friends to a movie or dinner. Now you’ve got to go change and everyone’s in the car waiting for you. Aghhhh!

 

The only thing worse than sticky fingers on the pants leg is having sticky fingers yourself. Especially when you’re at a public place and you pick up the utensil or whatever object and there’s something sticky on it. Now that’s gross! You rush off to the nearest washroom and scrub for ten minutes and then (in my case) ask my wife for the hand sanitizer that I hope she has plenty of in her purse!

 

God does not like sticky fingers. When he was leading his people, the Israelites, away from Egyptian slavery, they had a really tough time adjusting to their new way of life and keeping their hands off the things God wanted them to be cleansed from — things like foreign gods and greedy gook. The cleansing was so intense that when God gave them lands their enemies owned, wells they hadn’t dug and homes they didn’t build, he warned his people about not letting "any of the plunder devoted to holy destruction stick to your fingers." (Deuteronomy 13:17, The Message) Of course, they didn’t always do so well and when their sticky fingers couldn’t shake off the temptation to hold on to some of the stuff for themselves, well, there were always consequences.

 

You know where I’m going with this. Sticky fingers get us in all kinds of trouble. Think about something you know God wants from you — could be money, could be time, could be leadership for some particular cause or ministry — but we say "I can’t afford it. I don’t have time, I’m too busy. I’m not interested in the pressure and hassle of trying to work with people. After a long day I just want to go home and be a couch potato or go out and eat with my friends, or…" If you have similar type responses when God wants something from you, you have sticky fingers.

 

God hates sticky fingers.

 

There’s only two options. Continue to have sticky fingers and experience God’s unhappiness with it and be ready for the consequences or ask God to clean up your act.

 

What you do about your sticky fingers determines where your relationship with God is. The Bible asks an important question, followed with the answer - and with this, I finish.

" 3 Who may climb the mountain of the Lord?
      Who may stand in his holy place?
 4 Only those whose hands and hearts are pure,
      who do not worship idols
      and never tell lies.
 5 They will receive the Lord’s blessing
      and have a right relationship with God their savior.
 6 Such people may seek you
      and worship in your presence, O God of Jacob.

 

Sticky hands or clean hands and pure heart.  Relationship with God or hang out with yourself? You choose.