What’s in Your Hand?
Sometimes the Lord seems to whisper the same message in different places until we are ready to hear it.
For several weeks, my thoughts have been drawn to the themes of seed, harvest, and labourers. During our Small Group Zoom Meeting, I asked a simple question:
“What is in your hand that God can use?”
The question was rhetorical and was meant to stir thought and encourage reflection.
The next morning, I attended our women’s breakfast, where the speaker posed the same question to the ladies gathered: "What’s in your hand that the Lord can use?"
For a moment, my heart sank.
I found myself quietly wondering if I should abandon the blog I had been planning as a follow-up to the last one, 'From Seed to Harvest'.
Then another thought came.
Perhaps the message was never mine to begin with.
Perhaps the Lord is simply asking the same question in different places because He wants more people to hear it.
Are you waiting for a sign, or is it possible that the answer has been with you all along?
If I am honest, I have often found myself in that group: those who feel they have little to offer. We can so easily allow our own self-doubt, or the dismissive comments of others, to convince us that our gifts are too small to matter.
Could He be trying to get your attention today? He certainly has got mine!
A Prayer of True Surrender
How do I truly surrender to You
You who know my every thought,
My inclinations,
The very breadth and make-up of me?
You created me in Your image
Gifted me with self-will,
With insight
With creative gifts of my own
With scope to grow and expand.
You knew how wayward I could become
How the same gifts could refine
Or undo me.
A clause was fashioned in the covenant:
That what You placed within me
Would be used in service
Horizontal and vertical,
Towards others and towards You.
Yet You ask not only for the surrender of what I have,
But of who I am
So You may reshape,
Improve,
Restore
How I have struggled.
I turned inward and grew smaller,
Became less when
You called me to be more.
Now I lift my head.
You gaze into my soul
I cannot hide as Adam once tried
Do I wrestle with You
As Jacob did?
Not to escape Your will,
But to be changed by it.
So, here I am
Nothing withheld
Nothing defended
I surrender
Scripture: Psalm 139:1–2
Yahweh, you have searched me, and you know me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar.
Comparing may not be right, but it’s something that Can come naturally.
A dear friend has often encouraged me with three simple words:
“Don’t complain, compare, or compete.”
The older I get, the wiser those words become.
When we compare our staff to someone else’s spear, or compete to see whose ministry is more visible, we lose sight of our own unique calling. We begin longing for someone else’s assignment while neglecting the very thing God has entrusted to us.
Sometimes we spend so much time waiting for a different calling that we overlook the one already resting in our hands.
Are we looking for something new? Will we miss the very thing God has already placed within our reach?
Perhaps we have been asking God for something fresh, even fashionable, while He has been asking us about something we already have.
What is in your hand today?
A listening ear
A kind word
Hospitality
Professional skills
Time
Prayer
A pen
Music
Practical help
Even a sense of humour that lifts weary hearts?
I once found myself offering the Lord something rather ordinary.
“Lord, I can offer humour. I can help people smile.”
At first, it seemed such a small thing.
Yet over the years I have seen how God has used gentle humour.
As a midwife, and now as a practice nurse, I have discovered that gentle humour can be a wonderful gift.
A frightened patient begins to smile.
An anxious expectant mother starts to relax.
A nervous father breathes a little easier.
The conversation becomes easier.
Trust begins to grow.
The problem has not disappeared, but a door has quietly opened.
When was the last time you considered that your “ordinary” traits might be a vital tool in God’s hands?
God can use something as simple as a smile, a kind word, or a moment of shared laughter to bring comfort and hope.
Never underestimate the ministry of joy.
A smile may be the first crack in a wall of sorrow.
A laugh may be the first deep breath someone has taken all week.
A light-hearted story may open a heart that a sermon never could.
God delights in taking the ordinary and giving it extraordinary purpose.
He took a staff and confronted Pharaoh.
He took a sling and defeated a giant.
He took five loaves and fed a multitude.
He took a little jar of oil and supplied a family’s need.
He took fishing nets and called men to become fishers of people.
He even took a cross, an instrument of suffering and execution, and through it brought salvation to the world.
What might He do with what is already in your hands?
In God’s kingdom there is no such thing as “only.”
The Lord is not looking for perfect people.
He is looking for willing labourers.
Perhaps you have been waiting for God to give you something spectacular.
Perhaps He is waiting for you to surrender something ordinary.
Place it in the Master’s hands.
For God delights in taking the ordinary and giving it extraordinary purpose.
Do you feel you have lost your purpose, surrender to the Potter, allow Him to repurpose, reshape you.
Consider This
What is in your hand today that God could use?
Have comparison or self-doubt caused you to overlook a gift God has already given you?
What “ordinary” thing do you feel prompted to place in the Master’s hands this week?
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