Lay It Down Moses

Exodus 4

Signs for Moses

 ¹ 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.
 ³ The LORD said, “Throw it on the ground.”
   Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. ⁴ Then the LORD said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. ⁵ “This,” said the LORD, “is so 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.”
                                                                                                                                                                              

        Ever since I was 12, I wanted to be a professional ballerina. I worked hard and I took classes as often as I could in hopes that one day I could be good enough. I had faith in Jesus Christ as my saviour, but I didn't really think much about it. I knew that He had saved me and I was certainly grateful, but I did not fill my life with Him. Instead, I filled my life with dance. I knew that God was in control of my life, but I pretty much let Him know that this was what I wanted to do. And even if I couldn't be really great, I would settle with okay, but I was going to dance. End of story. Six years and a small injury later, God showed me that I was wrong. He showed me that He was what life was all about, not me, not dancing, not anything but Him. I realized that I had wasted so many witnessing opportunities with my dance friends because I just didn't even think about it.
      A few weeks ago at school we had an emphasis on Missions. We had many missionaries at our school, and one of them was our chapel speaker for the week. He shared with us the above passage and told us that the staff had nothing to do with the miraculous thing that happened. It was what God did with it. The speaker said that God asked Moses "Moses, what is that in your hand? Throw it down and see what I can do." He went on to give examples of people who had great talents, and also people who had next to nothing, and how when God asked them to lay down what they had and they did, great things happened. God took whatever people gave back to Him and used it for His glory. And I realized that He could do that with me!
       Throughout my life, I've had many things in my hand. God has said "Grace, what is that in your hand? Throw it down." And quite frankly, I have said " umm, no thanks. I think that I will hang on to this, it means a lot to me." If we cling to things too tightly, if we make them more important than or equal to God in our lives, God will take care of them. If you won't lay it down, He will take it from you. Sometimes He will gently pry off our fingers, but sometimes He might need to yank it out of our hands. God has pried a couple of things from my hands. He has taken them for Himself and either said "You don't really need this in your life, it is hindering you, so let's get rid of it." Or " Let me take this from you, I can do something with it that will be far better than anything you can do with it." And I think about how much better for me it would have been if I had just laid it down in the first place. God wants what is best for us, and if we try and hold on to things we just make a mess. You can trust God with your life. He gave the life of His own Son for you and for me.

    So what do you have in your hand there?
Lay it down and see what the Lord God can do.
After all, you can't cling to the cross completely if your hands are full of stuff.