Monday, April 4, 2022
The LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?" And he said, "A staff." Then He said, "Throw it on the ground." So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. But the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand and grasp it by its tail"--so he stretched 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." Exodus 4:2-5
What’s In Your Hand?
The last few weeks we have been learning about Moses and the call God placed on his life. We have seen Moses make excuses, and beg for God to send someone else and then reluctantly consent to the call placed on his life. Now God is about to demonstrate for Moses just how powerful He is.
Moses was a shepherd and was tending sheep when God spoke to him in the desert. At this point in their concversation, God asks Moses what he has in his hand and when Moses answers, “A staff.” God tells Moses to through his staff down. When he does, it turned into a snake. Moses ran from it, but God told him to pick it up by the tail. Moses reached down and caught it and it turned back into a staff. God had demonstrated His power to Moses, which would also make the children of Israel realize that the LORD, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob had appeared to Moses and had not forgotten about them.
Moses was just a shepherd, with a staff. God can do anything, right? God could have made the staff into a weapon. He could have turned Moses into anything, like a king, with a huge army. At one time Moses held a scepter instead of a shepherd’s staff, but God didn’t want to use him then. Now He uses what Moses had in his hand. God uses what we have in our hands, but sometimes we hold onto things that prevent us from being used in the way God has planned. In fact, sometimes they cause all sorts of problems for us.
We hold onto the wrong things for many reasons. Sometimes we are hiding. Moses was hiding. He was hiding from the sin of killing someone, and then he was hiding behind his staff when God spoke to him and placed His call on Moses’ life. Moses did not want to do it. He was afraid and was probably thinking that he was just a shepherd with a staff. He argued that he could not do the job but the truth is that God had been equipping in the entire 40 years he was hiding in the desert.
Many times we are holding on to sin that we don’t want to let go of. Things like alcohol, drugs, gambling, inappropriate relationships, and many more things can quickly get power over us - the power that only belongs to God - and they become addictions. This makes it impossible to let go of on our own. We may have been using these things to numb ourselves to our lives, from things or people that have hurt us. We have replaced God with these things by turning to them to make us forget and feel better for just a little while. Then we feel worse, and soon we are not holding onto them, they are holding onto us. They have become idols in our hearts.
Moses’ staff was not magical. The staff itself did not hold any power - the power came from God. The wrong things we hold in our hands have no power over us, except the power we give it and when we give the wrongs things power over us, we can get stuck real fast. Throw down what you are holding that is hindering your relationship with God and His call on your life. Throw down the idols, the addictions, the things that we are hiding behind. Trust God and His power over your life like Moses did when he reached for the snake’s tail. He can take what has power over you and change it back to what He can use to fulfill His purpose in your life.
