What Do You Have In Your Hand?

The patriarchs of faith often faced the question of what they had in their hand to use for God. Abraham had a knife in one hand and a son in the other. Moses had a shepherds staff. The judges had a number of things from a donkey's jawbone to an ox goad. David had five smooth stones. One story that stands out in my mind is the story of Jonathan from 1 Samuel 14.

The Philistine's so dominated the smithing industry that they had forged all of the swords of Israel into farming equipment. Only King Saul and his son Jonathan had them. So 600 militia are gathered up trying to figure out what to do about the attacks that are taking place along their border when Jonathan says to his armor bearer, "Let's go attack them you and me." So they set off on a fool's errand to take on whatever Philistines they can find and when they get there they have a plan: If they call us up the cliff to fight them we will. They wander around until they see the Philistine soldiers who call them up to make fun of them. Only thing is when they climb up to the high ground, Jonathan and his attendant kill them all and now there are swords for all the soldiers in his army. God used what was in Jonathan's hand to produce what was needed elsewhere.

I share that story because recently I've been looking at what God has put in my hand, figuratively speaking. As leaders the people we lead are the resources of God that he's given in our hand. Sunday as I sat at the New Year Brunch looking around at the people that were there, as I listened to their open and honest thoughts about what God wants to do in their lives, and as I reflected on the year ahead I came to realize that we have enough in our hand to do what God is calling us to do. We have enough to invite more. We have enough to pray in more. We have enough to change the world. I'm thankful for what God has put in our hands.

On to the fight!

--Ben