Open your hand, and…voila!

My husband is not a lumberjack, but he’s not afraid of hard work either.  I think I’ve told this story before, in a bit more detail perhaps, but it’s still one of my faves:

One of our notorious Midwest storms had blown through, and in its wake we had an intimidatingly sizable branch in our side yard.  All Bob had was an axe, and so out he went to get started.  Not long into what he expected to be hours of work, a friend “just happened” to drive by and invited Bob to use his new chainsaw.  Whew! 

Still, it was quite a bit of timber now piled up, but—low and behold!—here comes some young men with a flat bed, and $30 later our yard was cleaned up.

But it all started with Bob’s axe in hand.

Segway to the scene described below: God is talking to a very hesitant hero-to-be, gearing him up for the important adventure of delivering the Israelites from a horrible slavery.

But Moses protested again, “What if they won’t believe me or listen to me? What if they say, ‘The LORD never appeared to you’?”  Then the LORD asked him, “What is that in your hand?” “A shepherd’s staff,” Moses replied. “Throw it down on the ground,” the LORD told him. So Moses threw down the staff, and it turned into a snake! Moses jumped back.

(Some of us might have done a little more than that…)

This was only one of Moses’ attempts to sidestep God’s call on his life.  The former adopted-Egyptian-prince-now-murderous-fugitive had several more excuses in his queue.  (I would probably have had even more than that, so I’m not finger-pointing.)

I see an interesting thread throughout the Bible—God is always doing great things with whatever we have in our hands.  No need to wait for—

• When I have this much money
• When I have this much time
• When I have ….

In fact, it’s never about “when I”; it’s totally about “when God”.  Consider:

Gideon and his three hundred fighting men holding trumpets, torches, and….clay pots??

Or David with a few choice stones and a slingshot.

Or Jesus with a kid’s picnic lunch.

Shudder to think of the opportunities I’ve missed when I had the beginning of something great right in my hand, and didn’t pay attention to the call to use it.

Exodus 4:1-3  Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.