A guest post from Dr. Suzan Johnson-Cook (Dr. Sujay)

Last week we asked, “Whose Hands is it in?”  This week, I’d like to focus on “What’s in your hands?”

Moses was an amazing figure in Biblical history. In fact, many more recent historical figures were compared with him. Harriet Tubman, the activist and freedom fighter who led 300 slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad, was known as “the woman Moses,” a name bestowed upon her with honor.

 

Many of us who attended church school as children learned about Moses and how he came to be. We were told about a baby abandoned in the bulrushes by his biological mother so that an adopted mother could save his life. But we can’t freeze-frame the story there. The two stories I remember most were about about the mature Moses. Stories recorded in the OT book of Exodus. 

The first is how he encountered God for the first time as the “I Am.” The moment when his purpose and call to ministry were birthed and he was told to take off his shoes because he was standing on holy ground. 

The second is when he successfully led God’s people, who were in the hand and grip of Pharoah, to freedom. The moment when they stood at the Red Sea with what seemed like nowhere else to go. After a series of arguments and rants and raves about their “doomed” condition, God gives a declaration to Moses and admonishes him to look at what was in his hand. There was a staff: a tool that no one else had. All Moses had to do was use it and the story would change from doom to destiny, from struggling to strength. Once Moses raised that staff, the Red Sea opened up and the children of God made it to the other side.

 

Perhaps we’re not making it to the other side of our own Red Sea challenges and obstacles in life, because many are failing to see, affirm and use what’s in our hands. 

God has placed something unique and special in all of our hands. Something that no one else has. 

In the hands of Heisman Trophy winning football player Joe Namath, he placed a football; in the hands of Michael Jackson, he placed dancing and singing abilities; in the hands of Ben Carson the great surgeon that separated Siamese twins, he placed a scalpel, and in your hands and mine, he has placed unique talents and gifts, to be used to bless God’s people and help them to get to the other side of this Recession.

 

Use what you have. No one can do what you do like you can do it. It has already been blessed by the hands of God.  Believe it or not, you can be a blessing to others if you just choose to use it.

 

About Dr. Suzan Johnson-Cook

Dr. Sujay can be seen and heard using her preaching gifts in NYC on Sunday mornings at the Believers Christian Fellowship Church (bcfbaptist.org)
and on Tuesdays at lunchtime in the nations capitol with Wonderful Washington worship. You can e-mail her at washingtonworship@gmail.com or wisdomwomenwordlwide@gmail.com or join her Tuesdays for the next five weeks at lunchtime at the Mt. Vernon Place United Methodist Church for a half hour starting at l2:l5 every Tuesday (9th & Mass Ave NW, Washington DC (across from the Convention Center).