Use What You've Got

Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?” ² Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied. (Ex 4:2)

Don't you just love this exchange? Here God is telling Moses he's been chosen to go and deliver the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage and Moses asks, "what if they don't believe me?" What did he expect? Did he think God was going to scratch His head and say, "Shucks, I guess I didn't think of that?" This is God asking you to do it Moses, He's obviously going to make sure you're able...

Or is He? It's kind of easy for us to have faith in this situation because we know the outcome, but the magnitude of what God was asking was completely astounding. Imagine God asking you to barge into the White House, point your finger at the president, and tell him it's time to put God first in this country again, or else. Actually, that's a bad analogy because the worse that would happen would probably be some jail time and being labeled a crackpot. Moses would risk being killed by Pharaoh, so the stakes were a little higher.

"What's in your hand," was God's response to Moses's concerns, and that's really where I want to focus. God calls us to work for the kingdom, but sometimes we wait around for some miraculous sign or until we feel we're as good as someone else, but God wants us to just go out and use what we have. Remember the feeding of the five thousand? The disciples found a boy with five loaves and two fish and Jesus not only fed all the people but they took up twelve baskets of fragments (see John 6:9-13).

Ecclesiastes 9:10 tells us Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, and Luke 12 shows us that the servants who are watching and doing are the ones who will be blessed. There are definitely times when God will give us new jobs to do, but we should never sit around waiting for some special call or commission before we get active in the kingdom. Do what you know to do now...There was as staff in Moses's hand, something very familiar, and that's what God told him to use.

In the parable of the talents (Mat 25), each servant is given a different sum, but each was expected to go out and use what they were given to grow what the master already had. So, it's incumbent upon us to do the same. Do you like to sing? Perhaps you should use that for the kingdom. Do you enjoy fellowship? Use it for the kingdom. Are you knowledgeable in the Word of God? Use that to reach people and bring them into the kingdom of God. The list could go on forever, because each of us has different talents, abilities, likes, and dislikes. Nevertheless, we should all do our part to impact the world around us.

Don't worry about the things you don't have or can't do, that's why we have brothers and sisters in the kingdom. Just like God provided Aaron to be Moses's mouthpiece (Ex 4:14), we can leverage off of each other's talents to work together. The thing God wants you to do is step out and begin using what He's already given you for the benefit of His kingdom...