Last week on Tuesday Tea Time with the Lord Evangelist and I had discussed Resurrection Power and the valley of dry bones! Powerful discussion! I recommend going back and listening or reading it on my new blog “Talks with Becca!”
On this week our topic is:
What’s That In Your Hand?
I will start off this teaching with a story with me the other day. Kamea is in an online school and her art teacher was teaching her art design on the computer! It was really neat and I wanted Kamea to teach me so I knew how to create pictures for Tuesday Tea posts. We tried and tried for hours to figure it out and were unsuccessful! Then, giving up I saw on my phone apps the one I use for collages for my paparazzi recognition! I excitedly went on pinterest, got some pictures and started experimenting! I Came to find out that the app I needed the whole time to make Tuesday Tea banners was already on my phone and I didn’t need to learn anything new! The lesson? God gives us everything we need before we actually need it! That leads me to King David.
The thing with King David was he was not always a King. He grew up being a shepherd boy taking care of the sheep and protecting the sheep from the lion, bear and other animals. God trained him through the menial tasks throughout the day. The thing about training us in the menial tasks is that it does not feel like training at all! When he was asked to bring lunch to his brothers he said he could fight Goliath.
Goliath was six cubits and a span. His helmet was bronze and wore an armor of bronze weighing 5 thousand shekels. He wore bronze greaves on his legs and a bronze javelin on his back. His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod and the iron point weighed 6 hundred shekels. I can imagine looking intimidating and no wonder all the men were not believing David! Saul tried to have him wear his armor for protection and to fight him but he couldn’t even move in it let alone lift them to fight. It was when David took off the unnecessary armor given to Saul and used what David was given( the stones and the slingshot) he was able to defeat Goliath! We find that in 1 Samuel 17.
That leads me to Acts 16 starting in verse 16 when Paul and Silas were arrested and in jail! They met a lady who had a spirit by which she predicted the future, making a great deal of money for the owners. She followed the men shouting they were the men that are servants of the most high God, who are telling you the way to be saved. After following and shouting for several days they cast the spirit out, making the men mad, bringing them before the authorities. Being beaten, stripped and thrown into jail. It was at the midnight hour with broken noses, hurting, chained in jail Paul and Silas had a choice!
They could lay down and die like Jobs’ wife wanted him to do or do the one thing they could do. They had church! Praying and singing hymns to God! If we are honest and transparent about it, if we had been through all they had been through would we have done the same? But, it was when they pushed past all the opposition using the one thing they knew how to do was when they reached a breakthrough and the prison doors were open and chains broken. Again, they had a choice! They could have ran. But, when the warden thought they had escaped and was about to kill himself is when Paul called out and said they were all there! That led to the warden giving his life to Christ and changing his whole family’s world by using what was in their hands and what they already knew how to do!
But, do we apply it? Do we use it? Or are we always trying to find new and inventive ways of trying to figure things out and make things better! That leads me to Joseph in prison for 13 years in Genesis 39 Joseph was accused and put in prison for something he did not do. How many of us have been accused of doing something we did not do? Yet, while he was in prison God used him, showed favor and was with him. He told the meaning of the dreams to the others and the warden put him in charge.
The men told him they would not forget him yet that is exactly what they did and was left in jail 13 years! At first glance, we see the unfairness, we see the injustice! But, it was developing him, equipping him and protecting him in the dark room of life. When he was remembered? He was not only able to tell Pharoah the dream, what it meant, was put in charge and saved the whole nation from famine even his family that sold him to slavery! He used what he had. He could have grown bitter! He could have grown depressed! Disheartened and even gave up! He rose to the occasion, used what he had in front of him with the warden in the jail and was preparing him for what he would have to do later for the kingdom!
Samson’s strength was in his hair and it was the distraction of the beautiful woman that caused him his strength, defeat and death. What is in our hands? What is it the Lord is taking us through that when we look at it from His perspective is really our training ground? Whose armor are we trying to use to fight the battles God is asking us to fight causing us to lose when He has given us our own tactics and strategies? What situations are we finding ourselves in where the Lord is asking us to praise our way through? Be still, know and trust?
We have a bad habit of trying to use what is in others hands. How they reached victory and success! I don’t necessarily think it is not trusting but moving with what our eyes can see. What do I mean? Betty had success, so if I follow how she did it, I will too! But, then when we do, we don’t see the same success get discouraged and want to give up. In our prayer time, our prayer points this week need to be… Lord, what is it you have put in my hand? How are you utilizing the menial things in my world for training ground and what are you calling me to do and be in your kingdom? Expose and reveal to me what you have me to do in this hour. The things you want to cultivate and mold in me. The ones you want me to leap out and move in and the ones you are asking me to let go of completely that are not for me to get me to where you are trying to get me to be in Jesus name!
Evangelist Maple: What is it going to take for us to use whats in our hands and get where God wants us to be?