Don’t you just love the leadership of Moses? Well, I do. Imagine him leading the people to the bank of the red sea and there was nowhere to go anymore. Going forward is death by water, and going backward is death by the sword.
This was the point the people started looking at Moses with very uncomfortable gazes. “They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” (Exodus 14:11-12).
In response, Moses told them, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” (Exodus 14:13-14). Moses didn’t respond this way because God told him to do so, however, he understood that his statement is consistent with the character of God and since it is, he would expect that God would prove himself.
When he was done giving hope to them, he turned to God to cry for help but God’s response to Moses was quite interesting. “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground” (Exodus 14:15-16).
Why are you crying to me? God asked Moses, and I thought to myself, ‘why won’t he cry to the Lord’ but God went further to explain why Moses’ cry was needless. He said to him “use the staff in your hand”.
With this staff, Moses had turned the river Nile into a pool of blood, he mesmerized the magicians of Egypt but somehow he didn’t think this staff could make a way through the red sea until God opened his eye to see that the staff in his hand can do so much more than it’s being used for.
What is the staff that God has placed in your hand? A people skill, leadership skill, writing skill, speaking ability, people management, amazing vocal, empathy for a vulnerable group? There’s a staff in your hand that hasn’t been put to maximum use yet, it’s time to bring it out. And if you don’t know what the staff is, ask the Lord to open your eyes to it.
Stop crying to the Lord for that which he has empowered you to do already.
