There is a song we sing in our classroom I absolutely hate, Mom. I want to get up, take the CD and break it in two! complained my son as he munched on his blueberry mini-wheats this morning. Visualizing this getting up and breaking the CD in two while his first grade teacher is watching in disbelief immediately got my attention.

What song is it, my dear?

It’s that song, We got the whole world in our hands, we got the whole wide world in our hands... I hate it. It’s not true.

Aaah, it’s a variation of that song, He’s got the whole world in His hands, isn’t it? I said and proceeded to sing the original version. He nodded enthusiastically and started singing with me. Then he said, See, that’s why I hate singing it in school. We don’t have the whole world in our hands, God does!

Chuckling on the inside to observe the frustrations of the prophet-in-training plaguing our entire gene pool, I pondered how to respond. In a split second I was immersed in my own dilemmas of being a follower of the Jesus way in a world that out of ignorance or arrogance rejects His way and establishes its own. I also remembered my own childhood when I cheerfully sang blatant communist propaganda rhymes to the tune of Ode to joy (of all things :-)!) without even realizing that there was a God-centered original that lost its core in the take-of.

Then I slowly but deliberately walked over to him, scooped him up into my arms and as I begun to tickle him and kiss him all over, I kept asking, In whose hands are you now? In whose hands are you?

Yours! He giggled and wiggled, And God’s, too!, I added. See, the whole world IS in God’s hands, but He has also given it to us, to love it and care for it under His guidance and provision. So, in a sense, both are true – the whole world is in God’s hands, but He also has given it to us so we can learn to care for it the way God intends. We don’t have to break the CD, or cry out, Foul! when we hear the distortion of His songs (although we may feel like doing it!). What we need to do is lovingly show what it is like to care for the little piece of God’s real estate entrusted to us, the part “we hold in our hands” not in our own but in God’s way.