Rev. Don Campbell

THOUGHT FOR TODAY, JANUARY 31, 2019: WHAT’S IN YOUR HAND? [Ex 4-6]

Moses had sought some assurances from God of the success of the mission and God gave his word: “I promise that I will bring you out” (Ex 3:17). “I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with wonders” (Ex 3:20). “You shall plunder the Egyptians” (Ex 3:22).

Moses still wanted to argue: “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’ The Lord said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?’ He said, ‘A staff.’ And he said, ‘Throw it on the ground.’ So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it. But the Lord said to Moses, ‘Put out your hand and catch it by the tail’—so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand— ‘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’” (Ex 4:1-5).

Moses isn’t through arguing with God: “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.” Was the Holy Spirit mistaken when he guided Stephen to say that Moses was “mighty in his words”? The maxim “Use it or lose it” would certainly be apropos. What Moses had learned in the first 40 years of his life wasn’t much needed in the outback of Midian as he communed with sheep. God did not need Moses’ learning. Then the Lord said to him, ‘Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak’” (Ex 4:10-12).

Moses then begs, “Please send someone else” (Ex 4:13). God’s anger is kindled against Moses and he says, in effect, “You are going, but your brother Aaron can be your mouthpiece. “Now take in your hand this staff, with which you shall do the signs” (Ex 4:17).

The debate that had begun with God’s asking Moses, “What is that in your hand” now ends with God’s command to take that which was in his hand and go.

Whether talent, time, money, whatever we have is enough when we put it at the Lord’s disposal.

What’s in your hand?