the power of touch

last night i was invited to pet a cat. a friend who was holding our mutual friends' cat came over to me and gave me this option. i declined because of allergies. i seldom pet cats because no matter how often i'm around them, often even building up a resistance to their dander from a distance, i invariably have a reaction if i touch them and then don't wash. when i declined, i said these words: "i can love you without touching you." i think i wanted mikey to know that even though i never pet him, i love him.

my words got me thinking about how opposite and removed from the truth this actually is. at the recent birth of a friend's baby, like mother and baby, the father was encouraged to hold his newborn daughter next to the bare skin of his arms and chest because of the importance of touch. studies in orphanages and hospitals repeatedly tell us that infants deprived of skin contact lose weight, become ill, and even die. premature babies who are administered touch therapy gain weight faster, cry less, and show more signs of a relaxed pulse, respiration rate, and muscle tension. research shows that children who are hugged regularly thrive more positively socially, and mature into a healthy young adulthood. marriages suffer when the simple romance of hand-holding is replaced by merely waiting on the other spouse hand-and-foot, and when he or she never gets a kiss for the sake of a kiss. there are noticeable changes in the mood and health of elderly people when they have exposure to simple human kindness in the form of touch. and yes, even fido and tabby like it when you take the time to pet them and give them a good scratch. the way i see it, one cannot love fully or properly without that love being accompanied by touch.

now, while the latter paragraph dealt with the power and importance of physical touch, touching doesn't just refer to the physical. we can touch people's lives socially, financially, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, etc. it's called caring...caring so much that you show it in whatever way that person needs it. it might even be caring enough to put yourself aside and putting that other person first, which is always a good principle to follow.

but everything i've said up to this point isn't even what i want to say...let's go back to my erroneous statement: i can love you without touching you. where my mind really went was to how i don't want to be the kind of person that Jesus called a hypocrite: one who honours him with my lips, but whose heart is far from him (mark 7:7 & isaiah 29:13). i don't think i can adequately love God without touching him. in fact, i was created to touch him. colossians 1:16 (niv) says this: "by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him." revelation 4:11 (msg) says, "worthy, o master! yes, our God! take the glory! the honor! the power! you created it all; it was created because you wanted it." that last verse is a statement of worship, repeated by 24 worshippers around the throne in heaven, and is accompanied by the action of each worshipper taking off their crown and laying at the feet of the One sitting on the throne.

my point is that i really think that if i love him i will touch him...not just when it's convenient for me, or when i feel like it, or when the mood strikes me, but every chance i get, especially since i was created for that purpose. if i love him, i won't just tell him; i'll show him...so that he'll know my heart isn't far from him...plus, when we touch him, we get his attention. he makes touching him worth it. think of the woman with the issue in the bible. Jesus responded to the woman who deliberately touched him (luke 8:45 & 46 nlt). 

it's in my best interests to touch him. i fulfill his desire when i do. and as much as there is power in his touch, there is power in my touch, for when i touch him he stops everything he's doing and turns his ear and his eye my way...
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this brings me to another statement i heard the same evening i made my statement. while watching the vancouver 2010 olympics opening ceremony the other night, i was struck by something one of the officials said: "let us touch as many as we can while we can."

now, it's not hard to see where this is going to go. i could arrest my commentary here and that simple statement will have been enough to make you think about what that means to you.

in fact, i think i will stop with this: if olympic officials feel this strongly about affecting people, how much more should the church be living by this principle? we don't have forever. we need to be touching lives on a daily basis by being the church God has called us to be..."by caring for orphans and widows in their distress" (james 1:27 nlt); by showing "mercy to those whose faith is wavering" and rescuing others "by snatching them from the flames of judgment" (jude 22 & 23 nlt); by inviting and urging people "to come, so that the house will be full" (luke 14:21-24 nlt)...and those are just a few things we need to be doing...God left a long letter about what we can be doing to touch others...

i agree; let's touch as many as we can while we can...