After the transition from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time I was blessed to have a couple mornings where I hung out with my son before the sun came up. On one of those mornings his hand was in mine. I knew it was a fleeting moment, in seconds it would be trying to tickle me, climb me, or it would be picking his nose (just being honest). But in that one fleeting moment a thought raced through my mind, “What will his hands do over the course of his life?” I reached for my phone and grabbed this picture before the moment was gone.

Right now his hands are learning how to hold a pencil, how to manipulate scissors, how to color in the lines, how to build with Keva Planks, how to climb from one side of the monkey bars to the other without falling, and a whole host of other activities in which five-year-olds participate. But what will they do over the course of his lifetime? They will write papers and throw footballs and hold books. They will catch him when he falls and they will be used to pull him back up. They will fight and protect. One day they will demonstrate his affection for a young woman. They will change the oil on his first car. They will hang drywall and paint furniture. These hands of his have a lifetime of use ahead of them. He will use them for many things I can fathom and for even more that I can’t, or don’t want to (still being honest).

As his father I will hold his hands when he lets me or when I have to. I will put Lightning McQueen Band-Aids on them when he gets a cut. I will give him high fives when our teams are winning. I will feel them wrapped around me in an embrace when he is tired, or afraid, or successful. His two hands are amazing already and I am excited for what I will witness him doing with them over the course of my lifetime.

In the same manner I wonder, if this is how I feel about my son, what were God’s feelings the first moment he laid eyes on the hands of Jesus? Knowing what those hands would do; from cutting and sanding wood, to unrolling the scroll, to healing and serving, to breaking bread and lifting the cup, to being pierced and pinned to a cross beam, God the Father knew what He was calling His Son to do for all people. It was the highest of high callings and it was the calling of Jesus.

Even today we share in that calling, we are Kingdom builders and it is as the hands of Christ that we will build His Kingdom even here, among us, in our time, for all people to witness the God who loves us with a depth that we cannot begin to comprehend, yet we know it to be true.