No One Can Take Them From My Hand
“For the Souls in Purgatory – Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord”
John 10:28-29
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand.
Grace Prayed For
Lord, when our grip on you feels weak, remind us that your hand holds us more firmly than our hand holds you — and that no one can take us from that hold.
Reflection
Notice the movement in these two verses: held in the Son’s hand, held in the Father’s hand. The image is layered, one hand within another, a double holding.
This is not a promise that life will be easy or that nothing will threaten the sheep. The context of John 10 is precisely one of threat — thieves, wolves, hired hands who flee. The world is genuinely dangerous. And into that danger comes this promise: you cannot be snatched.
The promise is not ‘nothing bad will happen to you.’ It is ‘you belong to something larger than what threatens you.’ The sheep in the hand of the Father face everything that faces every other creature — illness, loss, failure, death — but they face it inside a holding that cannot be undone.
For many people in retreat settings, this is one of the most healing promises in Scripture. We live with enormous anxiety about our spiritual standing — whether we are ‘good enough,’ whether our faith is ‘real enough,’ whether we have somehow lost our place in the fold. The answer Jesus gives is not ‘you need to hold on harder.’ It is ‘look whose hand is holding you.’
The Father is greater than all. This is the foundation. Not our perseverance, though that matters. Not our doctrinal precision, though it has its place. Ultimately, our security rests in the character and the grip of the God who gave us to the Son.
Sit for a moment with the image of being held — your smallness cradled in an immense gentleness that will not let go.
You are not as precarious as you fear.
When Time Allows Reflect on the Posts in Library and Musings
Sharing
Jesus last words on Earth were to his disciples, can be found in Matthew Chap 28 when Jesus told his disciples, “Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Jesus calls all of us to share in his redemptive mission here on Earth. I would ask you to share this Scripture reflection with your family, your friends and your acquaintances, and then share it with a couple of individuals that you may may not be comfortable sharing with, keeping in mind always the words of Jesus, And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age
Author was assisted by AI in the drafting of this Post