I Can Serve God With My Hands

Written by Christella Ledford, Team #11

There are approximately 458 Bible verses that contain the word “hands.” It is interesting to read the many stories that involve how hands can be used: some for evil and some for good. This subject must be important to God, whether He is instructing us, discipling us, or loving us. He tells us to work with our hands and to present that work to Him for His approval. We see the humility of Jesus using His hands to break the bread, serve the wine, and wash the feet of His disciples, and by performing miracle after miracle by feeding the multitudes, healing the sick, and raising the dead. We should strive to be like the Savior when it comes to ministering and using our hands in service to others.  One of my biggest wishes or hopes is to serve and help others through Christ who gives me strength. The feeling that you get when you do something to serve, putting a smile on someone’s face, it makes me want to continue on and on. I am delighted to be part of an organization that makes that possible. 

Since becoming an intern, I get to be a part of the ministry, working alongside wonderful, Christ-loving people. While I was in my first rotation, my specific job was to work alongside the volunteers, to help them complete tasks, or whatever they might need my help in. Whether I was helping with the caulking, or painting the bunk beds, or even preparing lunch for them, it was amazing. One of the best parts about those volunteers was watching people who were much older than me but still had the energy and the endurance to finish their missions. For my part, I had to keep up and work with these wonderful, loving elders. The best part about it was that all that they did was done out of love. In the book of 1 Corinthians 13, the whole chapter is about love. Verses 1-3 say, “If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.” I love helping others in any way that I can. In Colossians 3:23 it says, “Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than people.” There’s going to be a lot of times when we come across things we do not want to do in life. If you have the ability and willing heart to serve others as Christ did, we can overcome anything through His strength. 

While we are at Tuckaleechee Retreat Center (TRC) for our times of debriefing, each one of our team had to lead devotions and the topic that I had was excellence. While I was doing my research, I came over a website saying:  “Excellence motivates you. Perfectionism paralyzes you. Excellence is a cure. Perfectionism is a disease. Excellence causes success. Perfectionism causes stress.”  There are some times that I come across things that I really don’t want to do but I still do it anyway. I found out that I don’t mind doing something when I can make it fun and want to learn more about it. This song comes to mind called Way Maker–one of the verses says, “Even when I don’t see it, you’re workin’. Even when I don’t feel it, you’re workin’. You never stop, you never stop workin’. You never stop, you never stop (Working).” Whenever we are doing something, God is always working in us. He is always there to help us in time of trouble.

Here’s a few things that I love to do: I love cooking and one way I can use this is to help others who don’t have any food to eat. My love for cooking can help provide for them. Cooking is a way that you can make people laugh and hang out together with a nice plate of food. One of the other things that I love to do is help with cleaning. Cleaning is a way of helping those who can’t. Right now I am in my last rotation and my job here is to do whatever is asked of me. So far I’ve cleaned all of the cabins for the camp. It may not seem like much, but this is where the kids will be staying for the summer, so we want to provide a clean and a safe place for the kids to come and have fun and, the most important thing, to learn about God. Cleaning is a way of expressing yourself by helping out those in need. Cleaning may not be fun all the time but it’s a good thing to do. It helps us with our health. One of the things I like is that you can serve the Lord by doing anything that pleases God and by doing it with love. Proverbs 16:3 says, “Commit your actions to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.” (NLT) 

God gives us a choice in how we will respond to and serve others. If we love Him and others, we will honor Him with our hands and choose to do what is truly good. Good or bad starts in our thoughts, and then fills our hearts, but we cannot act on those thoughts, either good or bad, effectively without our hands. That is why it is so important to be godly and choose wisely. I had never really thought of this before. He gave our hands to serve, to praise, and to pray. He has entrusted us with a wonderful gift that we must use for His glory and purpose. May we always choose to serve God with our hands in love. 

Christella is a part of the CBM Internship program, which exists to encourage young people to experience missions! To learn more about the CBM Internship program click HERE ,

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