God Wants to Give You Hands for War and Fingers for Battle

Psalms 144:1
Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.
 
The image above is the home screen image on my laptop and was thinking about challenges in life and the promises in this verse. Many times, we read verses in the Bible that sound neat or are motivational in some way but when struggles come in life, practical application of those truths can be another story.
 
This verse is a statement made by King David and speaks of the praise associated with the Lord and his ability to teach/train us for adverse situations that come in life. It was interesting to me that there was a reference of “hands” and “fingers” separately associated with “war” and “battle”. To me, a war is a battle and a battle is a war but in looking at the Hebrew root for the words in this verse it helped me understand what David was saying.
 
First, the word “trains” obviously has to do with teaching or instructing. When we need to be trained in life the inference is that we are gaining knowledge of something we don’t know but need. This also means that when learning something new that we may not always get it right the first time and need to understand the concept behind what we are being instructed in before we can really get it. The key is that we have patience in the process of learning, ask for the instruction and then have a teachable heart and spirit that recognizes we don’t know everything and need God’s guidance.
 
The “hands for war and fingers for battle” statement is amazing and specific to the war in general but also the daily battles of life. The “hands for war” is referencing the overall plan God has for us and that we need to grasp (as a hand would take hold of something) that God has our victory in the end. The “fingers for battle” is assurance that God will give us the solutions to struggles in our day-to-day life if we will trust in his plan.
 
There is an emotional and spiritual strength that comes from trusting in God’s plan for life. How do we understand that God has already won the war for us? It is spending time in His word and letting his truths saturate our heart and mind as well as taking time to wait on him and quiet ourselves to hear the daily battle plan we need to not just make it in this life but to be overcomers.
 
Today, grasp the fact that God has the war already won and then seek instruction for your success in daily battles with fingers finely trained for success. God not only has assurance of your success on this earth, but a promise of eternity with him when you press in and seek his face and live a life of obedience to him.