God Uses What You Have

Exodus 4:1-2 – “Then Moses said, “What if they will not believe me or listen to what I say? For they may say, ‘The LORD has not appeared to you.’” The LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” And he said, “A staff.””

Have you ever had those times in your life when you’re reading a familiar passage of Scripture but God speaks to you in a completely different way?

That’s why I love reading God’s Word EVERY day…I never know what He may be trying to teach me from familiar or unfamiliar passages.

This weekend, I was reading Exodus 4-5, a relatively familiar passage. I’ve read this passage numerous times and have even written blogs about it; but when I was reading it this weekend, I saw it in a whole new way.

I often feel like what I have or who I am is not enough for God to use in significant ways. Most people have the talents and abilities that I possess and have even refined them to be “better” than what I have.

I think Moses felt the same way.

In Exodus 4:1, Moses was questioning God about what he was to say to the Israelites if they didn’t believe that God had sent him to deliver them from Egypt. In verse 2, God asks Moses a simple question: “What is in your hand?”. Moses was carrying his ordinary shepherd’s staff, something he used every day to help him with this ordinary job.

But then God asked him to step out in faith (just not in those words).

God told Moses to throw his staff on the ground. When he obeyed, it turned into a snake and Moses promptly fled from it. I’m pretty sure that Moses had thrown his ordinary staff to the ground multiple times before and it have never turned into a snake. But this time was different.

Then God pushed Moses further.

God to Moses to pick up the snake by the tail. Moses obeyed and the snake turned back into the staff.

This was to be a sign that Moses could use to show the people of Israel that God had indeed appeared to him and sent him to them.

God gave Moses other signs to help convince the Israelites and God also countered Moses’ excuses of why he wasn’t the top candidate for the job. When God sent him to Egypt, the only thing He told Moses to take was…the staff.

If you read down to Exodus 4:20, it says that Moses “took the staff of God in his hand” when he returned to Egypt.

Did you catch it?

It had been an ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill staff in verse 2, but in verse 20, it’s now “the staff of God”. God can, and does, that the ordinary things in our lives and turns them into extraordinary things for His kingdom.

If you fast forward and read more of Exodus and Numbers, you’ll see that God used Moses’ staff in mighty ways, such as parting the Red Sea (Exodus 14), getting water from a rock (Exodus 17), defeating enemies (Exodus 17), etc. But sometimes Moses trusted this staff more than the God whose power it contained (Numbers 20).  

While I may think that I have ordinary, common, everyday talents and possessions, God can turn even these mundane things into wonders if I give Him the control and trust Him to do as He pleases. We need to take our “staffs” and throw them to the ground in obedience to God and let Him transform them into power, Kingdom-building tools. But if I take these “things” and adore them more than God, I will have to bear the consequences.

Friends, God has works prepared for us to do (Ephesians 2:10) with the “things” He has given us. He doesn’t call everyone to talk to crowds of people or to a foreign land to tell others about Him. In fact, most of us are called to talk to individuals about Him, right in our circle of influence. He doesn’t require us to have special equipment, the latest gadget, the biggest bank account, or the highest level of education in order to serve and please Him. God uses what you have, but most of all, He wants us to have a willing heart, an obedient heart, and a humble heart.

What do you have that God wants to use? What’s in your hand? What’s your “staff”?

Ephesians 2:10 – “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”