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.’” So the LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A rod.” And He said, “Cast it on the ground.” So he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. Then the LORD said to Moses, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail” (and he reached out his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand), “that they may believe that the LORD God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” (Exodus 4:1-5)
God was about to send Moses on one of the most important missions in history, to deliver His people from Egypt and to establish them as a true nation in the land He promised them. Moses was afraid and uncertain. He questioned God about it in several ways. Here he asked, “What if they don’t believe me?” God answered by showing him a miracle. While God is not going to miraculously use what is in our hands today, He is going to, through His providential care, use whatever it is for His glory. I suggest several things that we should see “in our hands” if God were to ask this question today.
Today. I contend that one of the precious commodities that we hold in our hands right now is today. It is the only clay with which we can currently work. Yesterday’s clay is hardened already into the past. Tomorrow will bring its own clay to our hands if we make it through today. I hope that I can take today in my hands before God, and He can make it a tool for His service. May I cherish every minute of today and “redeem the time.” May I go to bed tonight happily exhausted because of a day well spent. May I use today to grow, to glow and to go. May God bless me that I might not waste today on anger, jealousy and fear. May He take this day that I hold in my hand and make it a successful day. Today is a gift from God that He has placed in my hand.
Prayer. A term can be used so much that it loses its power. Despite that, I pray that God will help me to be a “prayer warrior.” May I take the powerful gift in my hand of prayer and use it for good. May I learn to honestly pray for my family, my friends and my brothers and sisters in Christ. May I also learn to pray for those who hate me, misuse me and anger me. May prayer be a tool effectively used to remember my need for God and to express thanks to Him for everything He has done for me. May I hold up my hand to God and show Him that I hold prayer in my hand for Him to use for good.
The Sword of the Spirit. If God were to ask me, like He did Moses, “What is that in your hand?” I would hope that I could say, “It is Your Word that I have hidden in my heart and that I hold in my hand ready to use for your cause.” May I ever work to be a skilled “swordsman” of the Word, no, not for injury or to prove that I am right. May I be skilled in touching people’s hearts with the sharp piercing of the truth of God’s Word. May I stand firm, whether they repent and want to do right (Acts 2), or whether they pick up stones to kill me (Acts 7). May God use the sword in my hand to glorify Him and to save others.
Love. If I were standing in the presence of the Almighty Creator, and He said to me, “What is that in your hand?” I would hope that one of the things He would find is a love that is standing on ready. I want my love to be ready for those that are closest to me. May I truly love my wife, my children and my grandchildren. May I love without hypocrisy my brothers and sisters in Christ. May God use my love as an expression of the fact that, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” May God use my love as a force for good wherever I go and whatever I do. God is fully able where I cannot stand on my own.
What do you have in your hand? When it comes to serving God, to turning yourself over to His hands, what do you have in your hands, your arsenal, your heart, that God can use to accomplish His will, right here and right now? That is an important question; what is your (and my) answer?
