Open Hand Leadership

At Thrive, we encourage what we call, “open hand leadership”.  It is the idea that we are stewards of what God has given us, but at any moment we may be called to surrender a part or a whole of what has been given.  In many ways this has been liberating.  There is something infinitely more rewarding that comes from nurturing and stewarding something as opposed to trying to control it.  But recently I had an experience that reminded me that this practice must continually be revisited.

A couple of weeks ago, my tribe went on our Q7 retreat.  The week leading up to the retreat we participated in an exercise designed to speak wholeness into our lives.  It was simply spending 30 minutes listening to how Jesus saw me. And during this exercise I asked him what I was being called to do.  With my eyes closed, the only image I was given was of my hands.  That’s it.  Nothing more.

So with this my tribe went to the retreat. And on Sunday, we had the opportunity to spend time alone walking with Jesus and really listening to how He wanted to speak into our lives.  And much of my work during the weekend was with family.  At one point I stopped and just enjoyed the surrounding beauty of the mountains trying not to force anything.  And as I closed my eyes I began to ask, “What have you been trying to tell me Jesus?  I want to listen.”

And what happened next surprised me.  Jesus took my hands and held them out with my palms down, as if covering something.  He said, “This is what you are trying to do with your family.  You are trying to control them.”  My heart broke because I knew it was true.  I knew that my own wounds had driven me to create unreasonable expectations for my family.

When we try and control the world around us, we inevitably get in the way of what God is trying to do.  We hold onto the image of what we expect and miss what God is already doing.  By trying to protect my family and control who they should be, I was getting in the way of what God was doing.  And worse, I was missing out on what He was already doing.

And then Jesus did something that restored me.  He took my hands and turned them over.  He said, “This is how I want you to participate.”  And in that moment I suddenly felt the weight of expectation drop off me.  It was incredibly liberating.  By letting go of control, I was letting go of an unreasonable burden that I had picked up along the way.

And then I learned something that I had never seen before.  When we returned as a group we shared our stories and then closed in prayer.  We typically hold our hands out together.  One of my brothers jumped in a read Colossians 1, which takes about seven minutes to read.  And normally I hold my hand out palm down.  And what I’ve noticed in the past is that during a long prayer my hand starts to fatigue.  And as he was reading I could feel the weight of all the guys hands on top of mine.  When he was finished, my hand was physically sore from trying to hold up my hand and the guys on top of mine.

And then we closed in prayer, but one of my brothers did something that I had never experienced before.  He turned my hand upwards.  And as we prayed I realized that the burden of the weight wasn’t as hard.  Structurally it was a better posture for my hand.

Thank you Jesus.