Giving and Receiving / Closed Hand or Open Hand?

I had a conversation the other day that troubled me.  It forced me to check my priorities.  It comes down to giving and receiving.

I have to thank Mark Driscoll for giving me this image of Closed and Open Handed

In life we can be a closed handed or open handed.

I think the tendency is to look at our lives and our accomplishments, careers, family, stuff, dreams and aspirations and put them in a closed hand.  This is my stuff, this is my career, this is my time, this is my money.

I don’t think this is gospel living at all.

We don’t own the gospel we receive it.  And we can’t receive anything with closed hands.  If we are so focused on holding on to our stuff then we will miss out on receiving the things that God wants to bring into our lives.

If we live with an open hand we realize that all the things that are in our lives are temporary and we are not owners but stewards.

It’s not your time, it’s not your money, it’s not your family, it’s not your career, it’s not your stuff.  All things things are gifts from God.  If you want to honor God with your whole life then you need to hold all these things with an open hand.  You have to be willing to let go of some things to receive something else.

If I am not willing to give these blessings back to God then I should not expect to receive any other blessings from God.  If I hold on to these blessings to tightly, I will kill them.

So who are you?  Are you a closed hand or an open hand person?