Exodus 4:1 – 5 “Then Moses answered, “What if they refuse to believe me or listen to my voice? For they may say, ‘The LORD has not appeared to you.’”
And the LORD asked him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied. “Throw it on the ground,” said the Lord. So Moses threw it on the ground, and it became a snake, and he ran from it.
“Stretch out your hand and grab it by the tail,” the LORD said to Moses. So he reached out his hand and caught the snake, and it turned back into a staff in his hand. “This is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”
Moses is out there herding sheep, and all he has to work with is his shepherd’s staff. When God asks Moses “What is that in your hand?” Moses probably wonders what is going on. After all, God already knows this staff is all that Moses has with him. But God is about to make an all – important point: God can use anything and anybody to accomplish His work.
As you read through Exodus, keep watching that staff. Moses does miracles with the staff. Moses holds the staff over the Red Sea so that God parts the waters. Later on, Moses holds up that staff with both hands while Joshua defeats the Amalekites. (Aaron and Hur have to help Moses hold up the staff.) Yes, God works through very ordinary people and things to accomplish the extraordinary.
APPLICATION: The question “What is that in your hand?” has particular significance for my husband and me. So many times throughout our work in a small bush hospital in rural Ghana, we have had very few resources. Repeatedly, God has directed us to re – examine our situation to see what He has already provided. And repeatedly, we have found that God HAS been there before us and that there is something we can use.
One prime example of this came when God first led us into missions. In the fall of 1985 I had completed pediatric surgery training. I was working at a clinic and my husband was working as an EMT. Things were going well for us; however, we were quite uncomfortable! We felt a holy restlessness. One day in a hospital elevator, my husband met someone who told him that a missionary surgeon friend was back in town. That missionary surgeon put us in touch with his mission group and they sent us an application. But the application sat on my desk for several weeks. Finally, God prompted me that we should complete the application and submit it. Now the group did not accept us, due to some doctrinal differences; however, once we began applying, the restlessness lifted. From then on, we continued to explore possibilities until we finally were accepted by a group that sent us to Ghana in July 1988.
Yet another example is the time when God directed me to apply to do an Master’s degree in Public Health in 1996. First, God sent an American doctor to Saboba to encourage me; then our Regional Director of Health Services encouraged me. Traveling to Accra, we learned that one of our few contacts in the expatriate community worked in the US Information Services office where she advised people on graduate training programs and where I found a copy of the Tulane University application. Photocopying that application, I completed it and faxed it to New Orleans. I wound up doing the entire application from northeastern Ghana by fax. (No email and no cell phones in those days.) Each time I needed something more to complete the application, somehow, God arranged for it to be there.
The story of our time in New Orleans includes a whole host of miracles; however, none of those would have happened had we not started with the few resources that God gave us. And even today, God continues to ask us to look into our situation to see what He has already given us and to begin with the small things.
What are you hoping to accomplish? Have you prayed about it? And if you have prayed about it, have you examined your circumstances to see if there is anything you should have acted upon that you have ignored because you felt it wasn’t important enough? God is merciful and patient, but you must look in your situation. God is a Gentleman and He is not going to force you. So the question for you today is this: WHAT IS THAT IN YOUR HAND?
PRAYER: Father God, thank you that your mercies are so great that you have already made provision before we even realize that we need something. Please help us not to overlook anything in our situations, realizing that you frequently work through little things. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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