As Useful As A Stick

So, remember that my mind is stuck in 1967, every night dreams - remembering something from that year!  As I have figured out - it is decision points which are replaying over and over again - decisions which mapped out directions I unknowingly chose which brought me to other decisions later in life (which currently I have no memory of but I imagine that I will be cursed with in many, many more dreams ...

In "Thoughts From The Little Apple" I related one time about meeting Francis Schaeffer and a very long talk we had, in 1967.  I was unchurched so his discussion was at best wasted on this very unhappy youth that day.  And I think my utter ignorance on anything he wanted discuss amazed him!  And he talked about a stick .....

Think about Moses, a normal kind of guy, nothing really special about him other than he grew up as the brother of a future Pharaoh of Egypt.  He murders a soldier for beating a Hebrew slave and runs away to hide in the wilderness.  He herds sheep, I have no doubt he was very much a broken man - that fear in the3 back of his mind he had murdered a man, a soldier, he must have been wanted.   No hope, no future because of one rash act .....

He comes upon a bush which appears to be burning and meets God.

Now shepherds use sticks or what is known as crooks to motivate sheep to do as desired., it could have been anywhere from three to six feet long.  How tall was Moses?  Maybe that tall.  And God wanted to talk to the Hebrew slaves and eventually Pharaoh.  What proof was there that God had talked to Moses?  That stick of wood .....

And called upon Moses to use that stick fo initiate each of the plagues which hit Egypt.  The parting of the Sea waters.  To produce fresh water from rock in the desert - twice.  To turn the tide of battle.  It was no longer just a stick - it was now God's stick.....

As useful as a stump, as my father would say.  As useful as a stick it would seem.  It is not the value we place upon something - it is God's use of that object which matters!  did God need to use a long dead piewce of wood to make a point to Pharaoh? Or the Hebrews?  Or a faithless Miriam?  Of course not!

It was to support Moses and his authority before Pharaoh, before the slaves, in Miriam's face.  It forced the hard of heart to do what God wanted!  But it never was the stick - it was all God displaying His power.

And so, early this morning, this memory rolling around in my mind, can I be a stick for God?  Yeah when ever my body allows a life restart ..... I desire to be used and definitely with no objections this time .....