“Lord, will you make me witty?”

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am the very opposite of witty. I come up with great comebacks three days after the fact when the joke is cold and everyone has completely forgotten it. But I really wish I was witty. I think it is so cool when people say something and someone has a quick-witted response. It’s impressive! It’s cool! It makes people laugh! It draws a crowd!

But that’s just not me. I am a slow processor. I have to mull things over. I have to let information marinate before I comment. I’ve had people ask me what I’m thinking about when I am quiet. I wish I could tell them that deep inside my brain I am coming up with great philosophical ideas and solving world problems. But that would be a double whopper–and not the kind from Burger King. In times like that, my mind is usually a blank slate. I got nothing.

Since I was a little girl, I have had an intelligence complex. Learning did not come easy for me in school. Don’t get me wrong, I made good grades, but I had to work really hard for them. I have always had to study really hard.

Through the years, I have asked the Lord to make me smarter and more intelligent. I have asked Him to help me respond quicker so I can give a timely word. So far that hasn’t happened. But the Lord has taught me a lot through this weakness. My mental inabilities have caused me to have a greater dependence on Him. Where I lack, He fills. 

In Exodus 4:2-3, Moses has an encounter with God at the burning bush.

“Then the Lord said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?’

‘A staff,’ he replied.

Then the Lord said, ‘Throw it on the ground.’

Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it.”

 

What I found so interesting about this passage is that God wanted to use what Moses already had in his hand to do miracles through. Moses used that staff for tending his father-in-law’s flock in the desert. The staff represented his job as a shepherd. But in order for God to use his staff, Moses had to let God have it. He had to throw it on the ground. And when he let it go, that’s when God took it and turned it into the miracle. 

Just like Moses, God wants to know what’s in our hands. He wants to use what we already have to accomplish His purposes. He is just waiting for us to give it to Him.

A lot of times I sit around waiting for God to give me “something else.” Then I think He will be able to use me more effectively. But that is just not the case. He wants to use what He’s already given me. He wants to use me in my family, my job, my friendships, my sphere of influence. He wants to use my story–even my current intelligence level. He made me the way He made me for a reason. He’s placed me where He’s placed me for a reason. He’s positioned me with the people He’s positioned me with for a reason.

He wants to use what’s already in my hand.

I don’t think the Lord is at all interested in me being more witty or intelligent. I believe if I were smarter, I would trust in my own abilities, and I wouldn’t need to depend on God like I do. It’s not about me. It can never be about me. He wants me to give what I already am to Him, so He can move through me. See, it’s about Him. It always has to be about Him.

He is the One who has to get the glory. 

Check out what Exodus 4:20 says, “So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand.”

Wait! What did that verse say he had in his hand now?

The staff of God.

DL Moody said, “Let God have your life; He can do more with it than you can.”

He also said, “The world has yet to see what God can do with a man fully consecrated to Him.”

 

So I ask you, “What is that in your hand?”

Throw it on the ground.

Give it to the Lord.

Only our great God take an ordinary shepherd’s staff and turn it into the staff of God.