Slips Don’t Count

“You’re in good hands with Allstate,” says the advertisement for one of America’s best-known insurance companies. We’re all familiar with the “logo” which accompanies these words — a pair of giant outstretched hands which cradle a house and car. I have no idea who originated the Allstate “logo,” but the “giant hands” concept could very well have been borrowed from today’s Gospel Lesson. Referring specifically to His faithful followers, Jesus speaks these words of assurance: “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” Jesus is saying, in effect, “You’re in good hands with the Almighty.”

A Gospel song says, “He’s got the whole world in His hands.” That’s true, of course. God does have the whole world in His hands. He wrote the first chapter of the world’s history, and He will write the last chapter. Nothing happens that He does not in some sense permit. But…