What Is In Your Hand?
Summary: Allowing God to use what’s in your hand for His glory can not only bless you but bless others at well. A closed hand never receives. If we would like the Lord to change the course of our lives and mold us, we must open our hand and release what’s in it. Moses, struggling with an identification crisis, allowed the Lord to use his shepherd’s staff to bring freedom to the children of Israel.
Moses discovers his Hebrew heritage while living in the palace as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Learning that he was pulled out of the Nile River from a woven basket made by his mother, Jochebed, was a shock.
Feeling uneasy living in the palace, would he renounce the royal throne? Should he go back to his Hebrew family? Will he have the courage to leave the walls of the comfortable palace to live as a slave?
One day he intervened on behalf of a Hebrew slave and killed an Egyptian slave master. Moses feared for his life and fled to the desert. In one day, he transitions from being a prince to a wanted fugitive.
Then the Lord appeared to Moses and spoke to him from a burning bush (Ex. 3:7-10), telling him that He cares about the suffering of His people and wants Moses to deliver them; but Moses focused on his flaws.
Moses found good excuses not to go. At least four times, Moses tells God that He must be mistaken. “Who am I for such a task?” “How can I convince them?” “Nobody will believe me!” “Please send somebody else” (Ex. 3:11, 13; 4:1, 10).
“What is in your hand?” the omniscient and omnipresent Lord asked. Sarcasm? No. He wanted Moses to acknowledge who the true God is.
“A shepherd’s rod,” Moses replied.
"Throw it down,” said the Lord.
“Throw it down?” (Ex. 4:2, 3).
Once a prince holding a scepter, now a shepherd holding a shepherd’s rod. The staff represented five important things in Moses’ life. Given to God, He would use it to perform miracles.
The staff represented Moses’:
- Identity—a shepherd;
- Income—working for father-in-law;
- Protection;
- Status in society;
- But it blocked him from living out his full potential.
Moses could not become the man God wanted him to be until he agreed to throw down the staff, his prized possession, and trust God.
Are you clinging to things that hinder your potential? For some, it’s our past, our pain, or sorrow. For others, it’s our hurt, disappointment, or things people have done or said to us. For many, it’s unforgiveness.
If we would like the Lord to change the course of our lives and mold us, we must release what’s in our hands.
We may never meet God in a burning bush or free a nation from slavery, but He is calling us to drop what’s in our hands and allow Him to shape us for His service.
What did they have in their hand?
Jochebed—straws
Abraham—heir, the first son
Hannah—first son
David—five stones, a sling
Ruth—stalk of grains
Widow of Zarephath—flour and oil
Little Boy—five loaves of bread and two fish
Unfortunately, some find it hard to let go of all they possess. Returning only a portion of their income to God often seems difficult. It is easy to focus on our needs and neglect to trust God.
Don’t be like Ivan the Great, a fifteenth-century Russian Czar, who did not have time to start a family. His comrades encouraged him to get married and they found him a wife—the daughter of the king of Greece. To marry her, Ivan had to be baptized as “Greek Orthodox.”
On the day of the ceremony, Ivan and his soldiers stood, in full armor, in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, ready for baptism. The king of Greece realized that they couldn’t have two identities—warriors and Greek Orthodox.
So, they hastily settled on a solution. As the priests immersed each one, they would keep just their sword arm above the water! The ceremony was nicknamed “the unbaptized arm.”
Jesus made it clear, “No man can serve two masters” (Matt. 6:24, KJV). Do you have an unbaptized arm? Have you totally surrendered your all to God?
Source: Devotional previously published in Dynamic Steward, vol. 19, no. 3, July-September 2015, p. 3. https://stewardship.adventist.org/2015-19-3.pdf
