Perhaps you’ve had this happen to you before. You’re listening to a speaker, and they say something that almost seems “off the cuff”, not really directly related to the topic at hand; yet that one word or phrase gets a hold of you and won’t let go.

Yep. I was out of town, and on my way home I decided to visit a certain house of worship (church… I went to another church). I remember that the speaker’s message was good and worth application, but there was something he said even before he started teaching. He spoke of the prophet Moses, and how he questioned God’s choice of himself. “What do I have to offer, what do I have to give?” to which God replied (and I paraphrase) “What’s that you’ve got in your hand?” Moses looked at it. It was a shepherd’s staff. It was a great big stick… it was a stick. Now, maybe it’s the way my mind works (or doesn’t), but I can hear the thoughts going through Moses’ head, something like, “You’re kidding, right? You’re not serious, are You? It’s. A Stick.” It was just an ordinary stick.

But God seems to delight in taking the ordinary and doing extraordinary things.

This stick, this simple shepherd’s staff, wielded over a rebellious nation and its king, brought forth plagues, portents and wonders never before seen up to that time or since.  With this stick God worked a miraculous feat of deliverance never before seen in the history of the world. This simple shepherd’s staff, which Moses used for years to tend the flocks, became a symbol of God’s power, might, deliverance and provision in the hands of a humble and obedient servant.

This all made me wonder: what seemingly simple tools or gifts is God pointing at in my life, asking me to humbly submit to His Lordship? Can I… will I, lay aside my feelings of inadequacy and fear, and trust in faith that God will take my “ordinary-ness” and do the extraordinary? With all my heart I want to say “yes.” Against all my fears and misgivings, I choose to say “yes.” “Yes, Lord; I choose to trust and believe that You can accomplish Your will through me, your ordinary servant. I submit my gifts… my “stick”, if you will, to Your will and way.”

This journey could get interesting.   🙂