 I have been so busy lately, my right hand doesn't always know what my left hand is doing. Literally. This morning it was time to brush my teeth, but my right hand was busy. (Seriously, I don't even know what it was doing because my brain went a different way after that.) So, I picked up my toothbrush with my left hand and mentally said to it, "You can do this. There's no reason you can't. It's not brain surgery." Sure enough, I was successful brushing my teeth with my left hand, although I had to concentrate on it the whole time.
Experts actually say you should occasionally do routine tasks with your non-dominant hand to keep your mind sharp. If this is so, I must have been a genius in 10th grade when I broke my right hand. A frustrated genius, maybe. I don't recommend it. The genius showed up this morning as I questioned God's purpose. (Okay, questioning God is never genius, is it? But sometimes, He might let you in on something.) Why did God give us dexterity dominance on one side of our body? (Because normally, if you are right-handed, you are right-foot-dominant as well.) Wouldn't that make us unbalanced? And I would think God would be a God of balance. I have no idea if there is any basis for this answer, but here are my thoughts. 1. People need to know weakness. It's more about the non-dominant than the dominant side. When I broke my right hand, it was hard, but I did learn how to do some things with my left hand. I could write, though it was messy. I could shave my legs, though it was spotty. I could brush my hair, though it wasn't perfect. But there were some things I absolutely could not do. As much as I tried, I could not throw a ball (the right way) with my left hand. Just. Couldn't. Do it. As a softball player (in my prime at the time), that was incredibly frustrating, because I KNEW how to do it. I just couldn't execute it. Neither could I put my hair in a ponytail. This is not to say that your right side is more Godly than your left (or vice versa for the other 15% of you.) And while Jesus tells us that all things are possible through faith, Paul reminds us that in OUR WEAKNESS, He is strong. All things ARE possible (possibly even throwing a ball from the opposite side). We can get pretty arrogant when we are good at something. Imagine if you were fully ambidextrous, and I am sure there are some people who are. There would have to be another way to keep yourself in check. Having half body reliant on the other half is a good, built-in way to assure us . And how about this? You know how I said God is a God of balance? Nothing about that is scriptural. Despite what Eastern mystics and yin yangs will tell you, good and evil are not equal. Good (a word that is derived from the word "god"), always wins, is always greater, and will always overpower evil. 2. There is just nothing equal to God, and nothing can even compare to Him. So does that make our right side more God-like than our left (for 85% of us)? No. In I Corinthians , Paul explains how the body of Christ should behave like our mortal body - all parts doing their given jobs in unity. Given that example, we can also understand that God created our bodies to work exactly that way - each part doing its own job. So if one hand is doing the work, the other hand is created to support it. When you swing a baseball bat, your dominant hand guides and pulls, your left hand pushes and follows through. Both sides have a job to do. I may brush my teeth with my right hand, but I actually eat with my left. I type with both. I do MORE with my right than with my left, and it does not balance out, but I don't even have to think about it. My life works smoothly enough to not concentrate on my fine motor skills. Praise God for how He created us. And Praise Him that life is not balanced. I am comforted to know that God always wins.
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Passion Under Grace,
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