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Inscribed Qualification

by | Oct 18, 2014 | Love, Salvation

Sitting by the fire one night, he quietly looked down at his hands, relaxed in his lap.

His new boss had called him into the company office. The new boss had changed his job description, it was still the same job, but called by a different name.

In order to keep his old job, he was asked to reapply for his old position. “What qualifications do you have for your job?” he was asked.

He though for a moment, 40 years of an unblemished record, 40 years of loyal service observably meant nothing. He was not famous, wealthy or highly educated. He glanced down at his pair of hands.
“My hands are my qualifications,” he answered, “for they have delivered thousands of people safely to their destination on time: been in charge of machinery and equipment worth millions of dollars: guided heavily loaded freight trains down long, treacherous mountain grades night after night.

“And on those long cold winter nights while you slept in your warm bed, this pair of hands would go work, they would feel the numbness of cold night air, delivering the goods across southern and eastern New South Wales – wheat and coal for export, fuel for your motor cars, building materials for your homes, and when the morning sun was high in the eastern sky these hands would be rested.

“On those long hot summer afternoons while you sat by your swimming pool, these hands would be bathed in sweat hour after hour so that the passengers could enjoy some our nostalgic history as it passed by their view.

“Yes my hands are old, scarred and weather-beaten with the passage of time, but they never faltered, they never once gave up.

“For they are my qualifications, the best qualifications a man could own.”

As I read his story, I remembered another man who looked down at his work-scarred hands. They were his qualifications also. “Look at my hands” He said. (Luke 24:39). His hands had “founded the earth and the expanse of the heavens” and he said, “I shall never forget you, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.” (Isaiah 49:15,16).

Elizabeth Price

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