The Power of the Finger

Reading this morning… Moses is negotiating with Pharoah. Sticks become snakes, water becomes blood. There’s a plague of frogs… then a plague of gnats. Pharoah’s magicians say, ‘This is the finger of God…’

Musing… fingers…

Small Fingers: I remember ‘twenty tiny fingers’ from children’s radio. My education at home and at school involved my fingers… washing dishes and making my bed, reading and writing, throwing and catching, playing the piano, painting pictures…

Well-used Fingers: Friends have spent their lives using their fingers… a chef making pastry, a postman delivering letters, a carpenter fashioning wood… fishermen, painters and decorators, welders, engineers, mechanics, accountants, health-workers… Fingers, scarred and calloused, soft and gentle… all well-used.

Unused Fingers: My Mum used a wonderful expression… A job need doing, someone needed helping… She’d say, ‘So-and-so wouldn’t left a finger!’ Idle fingers didn’t do what they could or should. Such laziness was totally unacceptable!

Misused Fingers: As a child I learnt about misusing my fingers… stealing, making rude finger-signs, writing rude words. ‘The finger pressing the button’ would start a nuclear war. Today our TV screens show guns… with trigger-pulling fingers.

Disappointed Fingers: Abba’s ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ tells of a small child’s growing independence; it speaks of relationships that start with intimacy and dreams, but, ‘slipping though my fingers’, become distant and disappointed.

Aging Fingers: One friend can’t play his guitar because of arthritis; another can’t write well because of Parkinson’s Disease… but aging fingers still appreciate completing the crossword or jigsaw… the warm hug, the touch of affection.

God’s Fingers?: I started with God’s fingers… David wrote of his God: ‘When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place…’ …Well-used fingers of power and strength; fingers of the artist and craftsmen.

My Fingers?: As a Jesus-follower… I remember Jesus’ fingers touching the sick, blessing children, washing dirty feet, breaking bread… I pray that today my fingers will be used to serve, heal, act kindly…