Talk To The Hand

As een in the HEARTbeat and Village Voice

Talk to the Hand

             A few years ago, a phrase went around in the younger crowd.  When the person didn’t want to hear any more talk, or even hear from you at all, they would raise their hand and turn their head away.  The person talking would see this palm of a hand facing them, and these words: “Talk to the hand.”

I’m not exactly sure where the phrase started or what it purely means.  But what the listener is telling the person talking to talk to my hand because I don’t want to hear another word from you.  Personally, I find the phrase and the action very disrespectful and frankly annoying.  From a pure logic standpoint, hands don’t have ears and therefore cannot hear.  From a pure parental perspective, I’m glad my daughters were grown when the phrase became popular, as it would not have worked out well for them for me to talk to their hand!

All this talking-not talking-talk to the hand has got me thinking.  I wonder, do we do this same thing as children to our Heavenly Father?  Does God try to tell us something and the urge inside of us (the one that usually gets us into trouble) is so strong we ignore His voice and spiritually say, “Talk to the hand?”  If we were really honest with ourselves, each one of us has done this very thing at some point in our lives.

God gives us direction in a multitude of ways.  Mostly thought He speaks to us in one of three main avenues: through the Holy Spirit, through others, and through His Holy Word.  Intuition is commonly called a gut feeling.  But for Christians, intuition is guidance, and that guidance is the voice of the Holy Spirit.  God steers us away from things we don’t need to be involved in or leads us along the paths where we need to be.  God also prompts others to say the things we need to hear.  We have just the right words to speak to someone when they are down, lonely, or needing encouragement.  Lastly, God speaks through scripture.  We can read the same verse at different times in our lives and its meaning can change, dependent of our circumstances.  Of all the questions I’ve had in life, I’ve never failed to find the answer from God in His Word.

In the coming year, we all need to adjust our receivers to hear from God clearer, and more often.  He’s still broadcasting on the same frequency, even if our dials have wandered off station a bit.  There is no better way to begin a New Year than to hear from the Master Himself, and hear the message He has for us – daily!