What is in your hand?

Throughout the Bible, God has a wonderful habit of using whatever a person possessed if that person would simply yield it to God. Among many other items, God used a stick, a coat, a fish, a couple of pennies, a slingshot, a jawbone, a rock, and some loaves of bread. God is able to use any ordinary object that is yielded to him in faith. The process is not complicated.

For Moses it was a shepherd's staff or crook, a long staff with a curved head that varied from 3 to 6 feet in length. Shepherds use them for many things, but primarily for support to lean on as they watched over their sheep. But when it was in the hand of God, Moses struck the Nile river and it turned to blood (7:17), brought a plague of frogs out of the waters (8:5), struck the dust and turned them into gnats (8:16), stretched it toward heaven to bring down fire, thunder, and hail (9:23), brought a plague of locust (10:13), divided the Red Sea (14:16), struck a rock with it and got water (17:6) and when he held it high in the air, his warriors prevailed in battle (17:9). To Moses it was just a rod, to God it was an instrument for miracles.

Significance of the rod.

1. It symbolized his personality.That rod identified Moses as a shepherd. When people saw that rod in his hand, they would immediately know who he was! God has created us uniquely with unique personalities of our own. Don’t try to be someone else. Be the person God created you to be. Give your life over to God and see what God can do through it.

2. It symbolized his problem.Maybe his mind went back to those days in the palace in Egypt when he was being trained and educated to be a Pharaoh. He may have remembered a time when he held the world in his hand, now he has nothing but a dry, dead stick. Are you looking into your life and thinking that your life is all messed up right now, because of things that have happened in the past. All that is left is now just a dry stick. Trust God that it is not all over. Hand over your life with its problems to Him and see what God will make out of it.

3. It also symbolized his potential.To Moses that rod was nothing but a tool, a weapon, a necessary part of his life. In his hand, it helped support him. It helped protect and guide his flock. It helped him in many ways day by day. But, in his hands it was still just a dead, dry stick. But when that stick was given over to the Lord, it became a living thing. It became a thing of power that God used to defeat Israel’s enemies and to glorify God. God took that insignificant stick and worked wonders with it. You may think that you are a nobody, you may think that it is all over. But you are not a nobody but a somebody created by God for a purpose. You may think that it all over, but it is never over, until the Lord says it is over.

Look at your life and see what you hold. If what you hold in your hand is not yielded to the Lord, it is a hindrance in your life! It holds you back from being everything you could be for the Lord. Throw it down and let God have it. When you hold it, it is a liability. When you give it to Him, it becomes a spiritual asset!

Application Question:

What are the excuses that you have been making to not respond to God’s call in your life? What are the failures in the past that has given you a serious inferiority complex? Would you be willing to give your past to God and allow Him to start anew in your life today?

Quote:

When obedience to God contradicts what I think will give me pleasure, let me ask myself if I love Him. - Elisabeth Elliot

Prayer:

Lord, I thank You for helping me to understand that You have the very best for me. Help me not to hold on to my life, but to yield it all to you, even today.Amen