How to Use What’s in Your Hand x Sarah Jakes Roberts
How to Use What’s in Your Hand
If you’ve ever found yourself encouraging others when you need to be encouraged, this week’s devotional is for YOU. Your endorsement doesn’t come at the expense of who you are. Use what’s in your hands, get what you need.
The Scripture says, “God has ordered our steps.” How do you know that God has not ordered you to be in a dry season so He can get you in a position to do something that you’ve never seen? Not just bring you out, but bring you into a super bloom, catapult you ahead, bring dreams to pass that you’ve given up on. Why don’t you be a believer and not a doubter. Doubters are a dime a dozen. It’s easy to say, “This is not for me.” But God is looking for people who will dare say, “Yes, I’m in a dry season. Yes, I have excessive rain. But I know this is not how my story in ends. A super bloom is coming. God, show out in my life. Surprise me with Your favor.”
I’m gonna do you a favor and act like I’m talking about someone.
We don’t know and we’re gonna talk about this person hypothetically and this person that neither of us know they are always there for other people, they can encourage them, they can get them through tough seasons.
But when they are in a tough season, they’re actually afraid that person that we don’t know that one that we don’t know is so good at encouraging others, but they cannot actually even heeded the very advice that they are giving low key.
If I was talking about someone, we don’t know. I would say that person has hypocritical faith.
But since we’re not talking about anyone that either of us know, maybe we can create a safe space, maybe just maybe we can admit that we’re more like that person than we want to admit.
I am reminded of this moment in scripture when Moses is trying to convince the Children of Israel, the Hebrew Children that they are going to be safe, that they’re gonna be fine that the Egyptians they see today they will see no longer and there’s no thing that happens in between one verse or the next.
But that very next verse is God literally saying to Moses, why are you crying out to me?
Moses never cried out to God. But maybe just, maybe God knew that though. He was encouraging others.
He himself was feeling like I am afraid and I don’t know what I’m going to do says something amazing.
He says to Moses stretch out your hand, can I read it to you?
I wanna read it to you. So you get it just like I saw it.
The Lord said to Moses, why are you crying out to me?
Tell the Israelites to move on check already.
Did that 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.
Pause, wait a minute, God, you want me to do?
What say, what say, who have you ever had a moment where God is like you hunt, who come again?
What am I supposed to do with my little hands and my little staff that would cause this great sea to actually divide so that we can walk through it.
That means that what God is asking Moses to do is not an ordinary task, but he is telling him to use what’s in your hands to not just have enough faith to get other people through a tough season but to use what’s in your hand, what is the sea?
You’re standing in front of what is the frustration, the depression, the anxiety, the insecurity, the hope, the dream that is standing in front of you that feels like a sea.
There’s no way I can pass through this.
There’s no way I can walk through this and you’re crying out to God as you’re encouraging other people.
And God is saying, use what’s in your hand and when you use what’s in your hand, I love this scripture because God never says that it’s gonna be my power that’s gonna divide the red Sea.
But he tells Moses to put out your hand to stretch out your hand as if you believe what’s in your hand is powerful enough to divide the red seas.
This is a different kind of confidence that God is calling Moses to.
And I’m standing in that kind of moment myself.
If I’m honest, this is me raising out my hand, stretching out my hand and saying, God, there is a big sea in front of me and I don’t know how to cross it.
And I don’t know how my voice is supposed to speak into it, but I’m gonna use what is within my hand and I’m gonna pray and I’m gonna hope and I’m gonna hold it with confidence because this is what you’ve given me and I’m gonna believe that that see that is in front of me is going to part what is your Red sea?
Because this is not just an ordinary video about someone. We don’t know.
This is a video about you and what’s in your hand that God has given you to apply to the Red Sea in front of you.
It is not enough for you to encourage other people while you sit back in your heart and you cry out to the Lord for yourself.
God says, if you’re really gonna lead them become one of them, but don’t just sit there as one of them stretch out your hand and show them how it’s done.
You’re watching this and without a doubt, generational curses will be broken.
When you stretch out your hand, you’re watching this and without a doubt, you were gonna be introduced to the most divine version of who you are.
When you stretch out your hand, you can keep your hand inside.
You can think to yourself my rod and my staff, it’s not big enough to part anything or you can dare to believe because God told me that if I stretch out my hand, the sea will part, then I’m gonna use everything that is within my resource and it may not be big budget like everyone else does it.
And it may not have that two story home, that two story family like everyone else has or heck a two story home like everyone else has.
I may not have the same resources as everyone else has.
But what I do have is a knowing that maybe just, maybe this is enough.
What’s in your hand, what’s in your education? What’s in your resource?
What’s in your family line is enough?
So stop crying out to the Lord about what you don’t have and there to activate what you do have.
We don’t know and we’re gonna talk about this person hypothetically and this person that neither of us know they are always there for other people, they can encourage them, they can get them through tough seasons.
But when they are in a tough season, they’re actually afraid that person that we don’t know that one that we don’t know is so good at encouraging others, but they cannot actually even heeded the very advice that they are giving low key.
If I was talking about someone, we don’t know. I would say that person has hypocritical faith.
But since we’re not talking about anyone that either of us know, maybe we can create a safe space, maybe just maybe we can admit that we’re more like that person than we want to admit.
I am reminded of this moment in scripture when Moses is trying to convince the Children of Israel, the Hebrew Children that they are going to be safe, that they’re gonna be fine that the Egyptians they see today they will see no longer and there’s no thing that happens in between one verse or the next.
But that very next verse is God literally saying to Moses, why are you crying out to me?
Moses never cried out to God. But maybe just, maybe God knew that though. He was encouraging others.
He himself was feeling like I am afraid and I don’t know what I’m going to do says something amazing.
He says to Moses stretch out your hand, can I read it to you?
I wanna read it to you. So you get it just like I saw it.
The Lord said to Moses, why are you crying out to me?
Tell the Israelites to move on check already.
Did that 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.
Pause, wait a minute, God, you want me to do?
What say, what say, who have you ever had a moment where God is like you hunt, who come again?
What am I supposed to do with my little hands and my little staff that would cause this great sea to actually divide so that we can walk through it.
That means that what God is asking Moses to do is not an ordinary task, but he is telling him to use what’s in your hands to not just have enough faith to get other people through a tough season but to use what’s in your hand, what is the sea?
You’re standing in front of what is the frustration, the depression, the anxiety, the insecurity, the hope, the dream that is standing in front of you that feels like a sea.
There’s no way I can pass through this.
There’s no way I can walk through this and you’re crying out to God as you’re encouraging other people.
And God is saying, use what’s in your hand and when you use what’s in your hand, I love this scripture because God never says that it’s gonna be my power that’s gonna divide the red Sea.
But he tells Moses to put out your hand to stretch out your hand as if you believe what’s in your hand is powerful enough to divide the red seas.
This is a different kind of confidence that God is calling Moses to.
And I’m standing in that kind of moment myself.
If I’m honest, this is me raising out my hand, stretching out my hand and saying, God, there is a big sea in front of me and I don’t know how to cross it.
And I don’t know how my voice is supposed to speak into it, but I’m gonna use what is within my hand and I’m gonna pray and I’m gonna hope and I’m gonna hold it with confidence because this is what you’ve given me and I’m gonna believe that that see that is in front of me is going to part what is your Red sea?
Because this is not just an ordinary video about someone. We don’t know.
This is a video about you and what’s in your hand that God has given you to apply to the Red Sea in front of you.
It is not enough for you to encourage other people while you sit back in your heart and you cry out to the Lord for yourself.
God says, if you’re really gonna lead them become one of them, but don’t just sit there as one of them stretch out your hand and show them how it’s done.
You’re watching this and without a doubt, generational curses will be broken.
When you stretch out your hand, you’re watching this and without a doubt, you were gonna be introduced to the most divine version of who you are.
When you stretch out your hand, you can keep your hand inside.
You can think to yourself my rod and my staff, it’s not big enough to part anything or you can dare to believe because God told me that if I stretch out my hand, the sea will part, then I’m gonna use everything that is within my resource and it may not be big budget like everyone else does it.
And it may not have that two story home, that two story family like everyone else has or heck a two story home like everyone else has.
I may not have the same resources as everyone else has.
But what I do have is a knowing that maybe just, maybe this is enough.
What’s in your hand, what’s in your education? What’s in your resource?
What’s in your family line is enough?
So stop crying out to the Lord about what you don’t have and there to activate what you do have.
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