How to Pray for Open Hands

This article is part of the How to Pray series.

Prayer for Open Hands

You have called me to open my hand so that You can fill it. But I would not open my hand. I held the world tightly and kept my hand shut. I would not let it go. But, please God, open my hand for me. And do not only open my hand, but also open my mouth. And not only my mouth, but my heart also.

Grant that I may know nothing but You, that I may count everything as loss compared to You, and that I may strive to be conformed to You.
—Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667)

The Allure of Temptation

This seventeenth century prayer captures the struggles of the Christian life in an incredibly personal manner. Believers of every era grapple with God’s command to give up everything for his sake, even while they strive to understand the corresponding promise of greater rewards. Jesus himself reminds his disciples, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10:39). But if we are honest, that command remains a challenge. After all, even as followers of Christ, we live in a fallen world, surrounded by temptations that vie for our attention. We regularly attempt to wrest control of our circumstances and to take as much from this world as we possibly can.

The author of this prayer, Jeremy Taylor, knew both the best and worst this world had to offer as he moved from a preferred student at Cambridge and Oxford to a high profile position in the Stuart church that included access to King Charles I. Later, he suffered the ignominy of defeat as his king lost his fight with Parliament, and Taylor was imprisoned for his royal connections. After the Restoration, he once again found himself in a preferential position, serving as a bishop in Ireland until his death.

Cloud of Witnesses

Jonathan W. Arnold, Zachariah M. Carter

This comprehensive anthology combines prayers and petitions of the greatest figures throughout history to bolster the reader’s knowledge of prayer and develop their walk with Christ.

Most of us have not experienced the extreme highs and lows of Taylor’s life, but we can all relate to the vivid example of the temptation to hold too tightly to the trivial things of this world. Despite our best efforts, those trivialities remain palpable temptations. Our only hope in our on-going battle against those temptations comes from the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, the divine work of re-orienting our heart’s affections. Without that divine action, we are helplessly enthralled by earthly pleasures. We are incapable of “opening our hands” to receive what God has promised to give for fear that we might lose what we think we have grasped. And so we pray with Jeremy Taylor that God would “open our hands for us. And [that he would] not only open [our] hand, but also open [our] mouth. And not only [our] mouth, but [our] heart also.” We are dependent upon divine action. In order for us to mature spiritually, we need God to take control of our hands, our mouths, and even our hearts. Taylor gets this, and he articulates that request.

We, as Taylor seems to have grasped, are susceptible to what we think we can hold—both figuratively and literally. Not only that, but we are also in danger of being shaped by the very things we can ingest, and we certainly subject ourselves to the words and sentiments that come from our mouths. We need God to take control of that dangerous tongue that can simultaneously cause damage to others and short-circuit our own maturation. That only provides a small glimpse into the root cause of the entire problem: our heart. Taylor, thus, begs God to open his heart to divine action because he knows that where the heart goes, the mouth will follow. Where the mouth leads, the hands will certainly obey.

In order for us to mature spiritually, we need God to take control of our hands, our mouths, and even our hearts.

Jeremy Taylor finishes his prayer by combining three quotations from Paul that summarize the struggle facing him (and all of us). Paul determines to know nothing but Christ (1 Cor. 2:2), to count everything as loss for the sake of Christ (Phil. 3:8), and to strive to be conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29). For Taylor, this encapsulates his Christian life. It is a truth that is so simple that it can be written in a single sentence, yet it remains a colossal challenge throughout the rollercoaster of life.

When we find ourselves at the height of human power, enjoying the best that this world has to offer, we tend to hold on tightly to whatever we can grasp. Our mouths are satiated by pleasantries, and our hearts are engrossed by the flashy promises of power. But all of those things are fleeting. They make promises that they cannot fulfill. We learn that all too well when circumstances conspire to push us to the other extreme of the human experience. But we are slow learners. When we find ourselves in what seems like the depths of human despair, we often long for the very “rewards” that already proved so fleeting—either in our own experience or in the clear lessons from human history. We need God’s work in our lives to teach us—to allow us to truly learn—that those tempting things are worthless compared to God himself.

And so we ask with Jeremy Taylor, “Please God, open our hands for us. And do not only open our hands, but also open our mouths. And not only our mouths, but our hearts also.”

Jonathan W. Arnold is the coeditor with Zachariah M. Carter of Cloud of Witnesses: A Treasury of Prayers and Petitions through the Ages.

Jonathan W. Arnold (DPhil, University of Oxford) serves as associate professor of theological studies at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. He and his wife, Lindsay, have four children.

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