Dare to Dream: What is in Your Hand?” Exodus 4: 1-17

Psalm 139 is one of my favorite Psalms. An adaption of it was used today for our call to worship. In this Psalm of David, we hear that God knows us intimately, inside and out, because God created us. Here we find words of comfort and of challenge - God knows when we sit and when we rise. God knows the words on our tongue before we even speak them. God is familiar with all of our ways. 

But have we ever taken time to consider that if it is God who calls us and God who created us, then surely it is God who will equip us for what we are created and called to do. 

Take for example Moses. We’ve been journey with Moses for the last several weeks as he has had this amazing call from God where God actually spoke to him from the burning bush and told his that he was going to go and be part of setting the people of God free from Egyptian rule. We also started to talk about the excuses that Moses was making about why he couldn’t possibly be the one God was thinking of to live into this particular call. 

Moses had asked God who he should tell the people sent him, to which God answered, “I am”. Then Moses asked, but what if the people don’t believe me? And God told him to look in the most basic of places - his hands. What was Moses holding? A staff. And as God started to instruct Moses about what to do with the staff, it was able to do these miraculous things that God called signs. But they weren’t signs of the staff’s power. They weren’t even signs of Moses’s power. They were signs of God’s power. 

Sometimes, when we are called to do these amazing things we forget that we do not need to have everything figured out because it’s not by our own strength and power that we are being called to go forth - it’s by the name of God alone. 

Back during confirmation class this past year, we asked the teens what they were willing to sacrifice for the call of Jesus. The pastor who co-lead with me, explained some of the things you give up when your priorities shift to following Jesus no matter what, but then she went on to make this bold statement - it is worth it to follow God. 

Moses had a hard time wrapping his mind around the fact that it was worth it to follow after God. All he could see at first were the obstacles. He would have to face his past. He would have to go and try to convince the current Pharaoh to let the people of God go. He would have to convince the people, maybe even some of the same people who mocked him when he left, that they were to follow him. When his eyes were on the obstacles, he was unable to recognize and live into his call, because even after Moses had encountered God, he still had his eye focused on the limitations. 

The truth is, however, that Moses was human like the rest of us. And when we view things through our human lens, through our human eyes, we tend to see the limitations and downsize as well. 

Very rarely are people’s first response to the call of God to follow whole heartedly. They often ask questions. And pick apart the obstacles. And wonder why in the world God has chosen them. But at some point we have a choice to make - are we in fact going to follow the call of God or are we going to let our view of our limitations get in the way. 

Friends, we need dreams that we can only go after because of God’s power and grace. Part of Moses’s struggle here is that he’s wondering how in the world he, as broken and limited as he was, was going to be able to do what God was asking. But Moses wasn’t the ultimate point. God was. Rev. Mike Slaughter puts it this way, “A God dream is an impossible dream because you can’t do it; God does it through you.” In other words, if it’s something we could do all on our own, without needing to stand on the strength of God, then it’s not a God dream. That’s an ‘us’ dream. 

My fear is, even as a church, we don’t dream enough God dreams. We focus on what we think we will be able to achieve and so we play it safe. We come up with our list of obstacles and limitations, just like Moses, instead of giving ourselves with abandon to dream the big, kingdom sized dreams of God. We don’t take risks because we are afraid that we are going to be disappointed. That we may stumble or fail. 

Moses wasn’t the only character in scripture who had some hesitancies about following the call of God. In the 6th chapter of the book of Judges we find the story of Gideon. When Gideon was first called an angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “The Lord is with you, Mighty Warrior.” And Gideon sort of looks around and said, excuse me, Lord, but do you see what’s going on here? It’s not good. The people of God are being oppressed by the Midianites. How can we say the Lord is with us in a situation like this?

Then God reveled that Gideon was to be part of the plan to set the people free. And once again, Gideon sort of looks around and says, who me? I’m from the weakest tribe and I’m the least even in my own family. 

Gideon didn’t realize what was in his hand either. All that he saw through his human perception were all of the obstacles and limitations, just like us. Just like Moses. 

But the truth is, friends, that in God we have all that we need for the mission that we are called to. When Jesus sent his disciples out two by two he essentially told them not to take anything extra with them, but instead to rely on God. If it’s a God-sized vision, friends, we must, absolutely must rely on God. But we also need to ask God to reveal to us what’s in our hands - in other words what tools, gifts, talents, life experience we have for this particular call. 

Take a moment, brothers and sisters, to examine today what is in your hand. What tools God has blessed you with. What do you know in your head? Now before you start listing all of the things you do not know, notice that wasn’t my question. I’m not asking what you don’t know, I’m asking what you are knowledge about. Is it numbers? Or how to teach? Or how to build? We all know something and God uses that to live into our individual and collective calls.

But it’s not just what’s in your head, but also what you can do with your hands. Do you know how to knit? Or carve wood? Or fix things? The talents we have are not laid aside when we live into our calls. 

It’s also what’s in our hearts. What are you passionate about? How do you show empathy and compassion to others? How do you build relationships? The gifts, talents, experience and blessings of our heads, hearts and hands are not accidents. And they will be used by God if only we allow ourselves to answer the call of God. 

Church, the God-sized dreams, the visions, the burnings bushes in our lives don’t just go away. Even when we doubt ourselves. Even when we make excuses. Even when we do not see as God sees. What would it take for you to follow God, trusting that God will provide what you need for the mission ahead? What would it take for you to say ‘yes’ to God? Amen.