Are Your Hands Full?

 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 6
“Better is a handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of the spirit.” Ecclesiastes 4:66Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit. (Ecclesiastes 4:6)
Do you feel you have your hands full? What are they full of? Of “travail and vexation of spirit”?
Perhaps we are trying to do too much, trying to attain multiple handfuls instead of being content with just a handful. We can be “satisfied with [our] present circumstances, for He has said, I will not leave thee” (Heb. 13:55Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. (Hebrews 13:5) JND). God can give us a handful with quietness as we rest in Him.
We can open our hands in the morning and pray, “Here are my hands, Lord. They do not belong to Me. Please use them however You wish.” As we work heartily with our hands as to the Lord (Col. 3:2323And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; (Colossians 3:23)), feeling satisfied because He is with us, God can multiply our “handful with quietness.” The widow of Zarephath had only a handful of meal (1 Kings 17:1212And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die. (1 Kings 17:12)), but God miraculously multiplied it so that her family, herself, and even her visitor Elijah were satisfied. As we yield our hands to God, God can use them and give us the strength and patience to serve our families and drop “handfuls of purpose” (Ruth 2:1616And let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her, and leave them, that she may glean them, and rebuke her not. (Ruth 2:16)) for the blessing of others.