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.- Exodus 4:2-3 (NLT)
“You can have faith or you can have control, but you cannot have both.”- Joel Schmidgall, Executive Pastor, National Community Church
As Mark Batterson concludes Chapter 13 of All In, he notes that Moses was quite insecure about the role God had chosen for him. Moses asked, “Who am I?”, when he should have remembered whose he was. Pastor Batterson emphasizes that who we are is absolutely irrelevant:
“God doesn’t use us because of us. He uses us in spite of us. . . . God has chosen to accomplish His purposes through ordinary people. . . . So He invites us into His plans and purposes. But we’ve got to throw down our staff to get into the game.”
In golf, the author notes, the key to a long drive is loosening your grip. So the pivotal question for us becomes: “What are we holding onto?” Or, conversely, “What are we not willing to let go of?” Pastor Batterson states that if you can courageously throw down your staff, God can do miraculous things:
“What you hold in your hand cannot multiply until you put it in the hands of God. But if you let go and let God, He will use it beyond your wildest imagination.”
Today’s question: What do you need to do to throw down your staff? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Our Advocate”
