What is that in your hand?

What is that in your hand?

Exodus 4: 1&2
1 Then Moses answered and said, "But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice; suppose they say, "The LORD has not appeared to you."'
2 So the LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?"  He said, "A rod."

   So many people in life focus on what they can’t do, and spend their lives frustrated and feeling like failures.  They’re too timid or too lazy to actually try to step outside their comfort zone and do something.  It’s so much easier to say, “I can’t” rather then, “I’ll do it.”
   Statues aren’t raised to quitters.  Heroes are not the ones who stand on the sidelines and fidget.  Successful people are the ones who not only work hard, but are willing to try to do something more.
   When God needed to send someone to deliver His people from bondage in Egypt, He sent Moses.  Moses was well trained and well educated but really didn’t want to step out in front and lead anyone.
   First Moses used an excuse, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”   But God told him, “I will be with you.”  Next Moses said the people would want confirmation of God to be sure it was really Him.  So God gives him a name, “I Am That I Am.”  The Moses tried to back out on God again by saying, “But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice; suppose they say, ‘The LORD has not appeared to you.’”  Then God asked a simple question, “What is that in your hand?”
   I have a good imagination and I see Moses looking at the simple wooden rod he carried and his brow probably wrinkled in thought.  The plain shepherd’s rod he had carried for years was just an ordinary stick.  Why would God be interested in an ordinary stick?  The better question was why God was interested in an ordinary man?
   Moses was about to discover that ordinary things become extraordinary when used for God’s glory.  That stick that Moses carried became a supernatural stick, and it even acquired a reputation.  It became known as the rod of God.  (Exodus 4:20)
   You know the rest of the story.  That rod found use again and again.  It became a snake and consumed the rods of Pharaoh’s wizards.  It was raised over the Nile River and wondrous things happened.  It was held high in the air and the Red Sea parted to let them pass on dry land.  It struck a rock and water gushed out.  It was used to perform many miracles.  An ordinary stick used in God’s service.
   When Jesus fed the thousands who were listening to Him preach, He used some an ordinary kid’s lunch containing ordinary bread and some ordinary fish.  But Jesus used them and they became extraordinary bread and extraordinary fish.  Those thousands were fed and there was plenty left over.
   The ordinary things that God has placed in our hands become extraordinary when we surrender them to His will.  “I don’t have much to offer,” you say?  Maybe you have little money, little time, little talents, few possessions and few friends.  But take what you have and surrender them to His will, and give Him the opportunity to use these ordinary things to meet needs and give glory to God.
      So, what do YOU have in your hand?

Stephen Cram                           September 11, 2011                     Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8