It is already the second week of January. Time goes by really fast. When I met my friends and relatives in Brampton, Ontario, during Christmas break, I shook their hands. Of course sometimes I hug them too. As a church minister, shaking hands is one of my job's requirements. Sometimes the number of hands I shake after Sunday morning service tells me how well I do my work. Indeed, I have shaken hands many times in my ministry and shaken someone's hand almost every week. Shaking hands is one of the most convenient and the easiest ways of expressing an intimate relationship among people. I have no idea when or who initiated the custom of shaking hands, however it is a beginning gesture of sharing fellowship and friendship with one another. Needless to say, it is an excellent gesture that helps make unfamiliar people get to know each other. So I like to shake hands.
Sometimes my hand is warm when I shake other's hands and it makes me feel good. I don't know why, but sometimes, especially after the Sunday service, my hand is cold or sweaty that I feel sorry for others when I shake their hands. One Sunday, I told an elderly lady that my hand was cold when I shook her hand, she replied, "Cold hand but warm heart!" Until then, I had always focused on my cold hand, so it had been making me tentative rather than shaking hands with confidence. Since then I have used the saying to any one who mentioned my cold hands, "my hand is cold but my heart is warm!" Depending on human body conditions or emotional and psychological reactions, human hands may be cold or warm. However the human heart and blood are always warm. It should always be warm; otherwise there will be big trouble.
I know some have cold hands and some warm hands always. Some people have warm hands, and that is good for they can deliver their warm body temperature to others when they shake hands. On the other hand, some have cold hands, and that is good for they can also deliver their warm hearts to others through their good and warm manners when they shake hands with big smiles. It does not really matter what hands they have, cold or warm. The real matter is that the community needs helping hands, caring hands and supporting hands in times and places of other needs. An interesting thing is that these good and helping hands are followed by warm hearts. So the important thing is not the temperature of hands but the functions of hands. These helping hands make and build a better and livable community when they work together.
People see our outward appearance but God always sees our hearts (1 Samuel 16:7), not our hands. Why, because there is a warm heart, there are willing hands. As long as we keep on trying to make our hearts pure and warm, it is not only good for each individual's life but also it has great benefits for the whole society. Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God" (Matthew 5:8). An interesting thing is that in our real life, no matter how pure our heart is, it is impossible to see God. But it is always possible to see the hand of God through the eyes of faith. Just take a moment to look back on your life journey, and then you will see how the hand of God has touched your life whenever there was the crucial moment. We, people, are only able to see God when His hands work for us, but God always sees our pure and warm hearts when our hands are used in God's work for the people of the world.
