What's in your hand? (Seattle)

Georgia Gilmore

Gilmore worked as a midwife in Montgomery where she lived with her six children. Although described as kind and motherly, Gilmore was also known for her fiery temper, especially in response to the racial injustices so common in Alabama during the 1950s. She would resist discrimination on buses and even confronted white men in the community if they mistreated her or her family.

After Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to leave her seat on December 1, 1955, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) declared a boycott of the bus system beginning on December 5. Gilmore, who had already refused to use the buses in Montgomery, heard of the arrest on the news and quickly joined the new Montgomery Improvement Association; this is when the boycott began. Gilmore's involvement in the boycott along with her vocal contempt for discriminatory white bus drivers resulted in her being fired from the National Lunch Company, but this only increased her participation within the MIA and the boycott later saying, "this new generation had decided that they just had taken as much as they could." Following her dismissal from the Lunch Company, Martin Luther King, Jr. (who lived nearby) and other MIA leaders helped Gilmore set up her own restaurant in her home as a way for her to make a living. It was then that she began the boycott fund-raising effort that she called "the Club from Nowhere".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Gilmore

Georgia Gilmore used what she had in her hand to fund raise and impact a movement. She was a great cook and began serving food out of her kitchen to raise money for the movement and for her family. She did not complain about what she did not have she used what she had in her hands.

So what is your hands? What can God use that you already possess?

Moses found himself in a similar position, pressed into service to help free his people from the tyranny around them.

a. Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?”Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied.

b. God encouraged Moses to stop focusing on the gaps he was experiencing and start focusing on what he had in his hands.

c. For Moses, this staff became everything God needed it to be. God used this staff to turn water into blood, this staff turned into a snake and ate the diviner's snakes, and this staff parted the Red Sea. God constantly reminded Moses what he had in his hands and I believe God wants to remind you what you have in yours.

Like Moses and Miss Georgia, God has equipped you with everything that you need. God is ready and waiting to use what you have in your hands.

What is in your hands?