What’s in your hand?

Exodus 4:1-2

Moses answered, "What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, 'The LORD did not appear to you'?" Then the LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?"

"A staff," he replied.

What’s in your hand? It is a simple question which we often don’t think too much of it.

In layman terms, it actually means what do you have or what have you been given? There is lots, such as your talents, time, ideas, physical abilities, personality, resources, spiritual gifts, experiences…

As a youth, I was surrounded by extremely talented friends. Everyone was musically talented, and all I knew was I could talk and had a fiery personality. I did well in school, but wasn't the most brilliant, just the top 20% cohort at best. So when I was told that God had given me talents and that he could use me, I really doubted and would ponder what I could really do.

To an extent, many of us are like Moses. Educated by the Egyptian court as a prince of Egypt despite the fact that he was born a slave, blessed to grow up in the protection of the royal palace even though the rest of the Hebrew baby boys were killed by Pharaoh. Like many of us, Moses never recognised God's hand upon his life and God's purpose for his life. I'm sure that when he fled out of Egypt, he thought he had abandoned all of his life and was now resigned to just living a reclusive life of a shepherd in the wilderness.

Like Moses when he encountered God in a burning bush at the age of 40 years, you too may never know when in life God will call you and ask you to do something for him. When that happens, it is very much like Moses when God will just need us to present what you have in our hand.

Billy Graham once answered a student who once ask him, “what surprises you of life”. He answered, “the brevity of life. It passes by so fast”. If you look at your hands, you'll be amazed at what God can do with what you have today. Don't wait till you are older, wiser, smarter, richer, have more time or am more successful.

M.

Show me, O LORD, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life (Psalms 39:4)