Desperation.  Who but a desperate person, who but a person with nowhere else to go would cry out to God, “Into your hands, I commit my spirit.” ^{Psalm 31:5NLT}   Can you feel the cry, the exclamation, the need for God and the hope behind King David’s words.

No wonder that a thousand years later, alone with the agony of the cross, that Jesus quoted David as his very last words on earth, “Into your hands, I commit my spirit.” ^{Luke 23:46}

I hope when I have nowhere else to go, no more life to live, that these will be the last words I ever say.  I want to say these words out loud and say them with all my heart.  “Into your hands, I commit my spirit.”   What words could possibly be better?

Here I am Daddy.  Hold me my God.  I give myself to you.   My Father, I am yours.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all say, “Into your hands, I commit my spirit” as our last words on earth!

So to make this happen, we need a plan!!  What if starting today, we say these very words throughout our day – and repeat them every day for the rest of our lives.  Not as a prayer of desperation, but as a prayer of invitation – asking God to be the Lord of our lives.   Offering God our spirit, our hopes and plans.

God – into your hands, I commit my work.  God – into your hands I commit my marriage, my family, my finances.  God into your loving hands, I commit my time.  I commit my eyes and what I watch, and what I want.

I believe that if we say “into your hands I commit my spirit” with all of our hearts while we are alive and well, that to say them when we are dying will be second nature.   They will be words of truth.

Dear Jesus; Thank you for showing how to live and how to die.  We want to live for you, and when we die, we want to be with you forever.   Please help each of us to be able to say, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”