What is in your hand?

After Moses had been wandering the desert as a shepherd for 40 years, God confronts him. God asks him, “What is in your hand?” to which Moses replies, “A staff.” (Exodus 4) I imagine that Moses replied with the same tone and emotion as if he had said, “Nothing. There is nothing in my hand.” But God knew better. The staff was something – and as Moses had gripped that staff for 40 years, God had gently fathered him. As Moses held that wood (a symbol of the Cross that would later be the item extended outward as God’s people were led from bondage to freedom), in situations that seemed insignificant and situations that were terrifying, he was being changed, humbled, formed to be like God, and prepared for more. The 40 years were training for another 40 years in a desert that was to come. All the lessons of shepherding – care, service, and patience – had equipped him to lead an equally difficult people. The staff – Moses place of comfort, support and protection – is then thrown down at God’s command, becomes a snake and Moses fearfully reaches out to take hold of it. There was more in that staff than Moses had realized. The mighty power of God was manifesting in and around that staff. Moses had been trained, without knowing it, by the Great Shepherd Himself, and now Moses was being invited to see himself with new eyes and to see the how full and extensive the Father’s intimate training had been.

Over the last few weeks I have had this question churning around in my spirit, “What kind of training did King David have to be king?” I look at the Bible and I don’t read about a King School and it’s not like he was raised in a very kingly household. He was a shepherd. Maybe a good modern-day equivalent would be to say that he was an elementary school teacher, or auto mechanic or even a Starbucks barista. What he did was good. What he did was needed. What he did was valuable but it could be easily diminished and viewed as nothing. So where was this training to become this heralded and unequivocal king? I don’t see a formal training that he submitted to that helped him “achieve his destiny” or “unlock his potential.” I don’t see where he read, “10 Keys for Ruling God’s People.”

No, his training was right there in the field. Like Moses before him, David’s training

was intimate and it was right in his hands - it was near him. David was a tree planted in Bethlehem and in Bethlehem is where God watered and pruned him and it is where he grew (John 15). We get a clear sense that David knew that the Lord, his Deliverer, was with him in the field. David was being intimately fathered and trained. Time with the King, in worship and in praise, had reproduced a king in David. So much so that when we read David’s first conversation with King Saul, we are struck with how it sounds peer to peer. This is not a timid and unsophisticated shepherd boy – this is someone who has been raised to reign. Let’s listen in – and let’s get a snapshot of David’s training while we’re at it:

“David said to Saul, "Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him." Saul replied, "You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth." But David said to Saul, "Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." Saul said to David, "Go, and the LORD be with you." 1 Samuel 17:32-37

What does David say? I killed bears and lions. I have been trained for Goliath. “I seized the lion and bear by the hair,” and soon he held Goliath’s head by the hair. His revelation of the presence of God and what God was doing in that hidden season lead to a nationally televised God-moment that no other person in Israel had been trained to overcome – only David had received this intimate fathering.

As we continue to read about David’s life, we are stunned at all that God had unlocked in that young, ruddy boy. He was a king, a priest, a prophet, a warrior and a son. David “humbly accepted the Word planted in him” (James 1:21) and that Word – the person of Jesus Christ – manifested the beautiful Christ. We see this again when regarding the life of Joseph. Joseph’s expression of leadership in Potipher’s house and in the prison could have been easily diminished in his eyes as he longed to be understood and to be freed. Yet, in it all, he had been so sweetly humbled that he could be trusted by God to have all of Egypt under his authority. (Genesis 41) We see into the heart and revelation of Joseph when he shares with his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:20) All of it was for good.

What is in your hand? And don’t say nothing! Are you employed, underemployed or unemployed? It is all being used for good. Are you single, married, married with children or married with 10 children? God is fathering you and God is using each relationship and relational dynamic – yes, the ones that feel good and the ones that don’t – for good. What are those bear attacks all about? God has a Goliath in your future and you being trained for the “saving of many lives.” What are these hidden years all about? If you can see it, the quiet and peaceful outworking of the Cross is at work in this season. The seed that has been planted in your heart is sprouting. Hold the staff and see that the Cross is more than you imagined – it is the power for those who believe! Can you see your own life now – where God has uniquely planted you and the people you have been surrounded by – it is all for good! Yes, you are in Detroit and it is good! Everything is working together to form you and to reveal the Son, the King, the Shepherd, the Priest in you. The hope of any such thing is only found in Christ the Son – Christ in us.

Oh, praise Jesus that we can save our time, our money and our energy. We don’t have to go running here or there to get this or that. God has come to us. Christ has made his home in you and in me. Now, God, in His miraculous majesty, is using each and every feature of our lives – our family, friends (or maybe some of them need to be ex-friends), work, home, marriage, the economy, everything – to draw out of us the Son. Nothing is wasted. Nothing is trivial. Every moment has value. Oh, Praise Jesus! The King School has come to you. The “training for reigning” is happening in your kitchen and at your workplace and when you are trying to balance your checkbook. At every moment Christ is on the scene. Then the Son says in our hearts, “Well done, my good servant! Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.” (Luke 19:17) Our stewardship and understanding of this time – right now – is of the utmost value and importance. All the training we need for life, our true and substantial expression of the Cross, and all the work of the Kingdom is in our hands right now. And while we continue to hold the Cross, we too can say that we understand any difficulty we face. Yes, God has a huge plan, and everything that is at work in our life… “God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”