What’s In Your Hand?
What gives life meaning is not a religious question but a profound human question.
The much broader question of ‘what is the meaning of life’ is a much harder question. In Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe the answer is ’42’ but unfortunately no one knows what the question is. But what gives meaning to my life is more approachable; for example Victor Frankl developed a whole branch of psychiatric therapy based on this question.
The Bible also offers an answer framed in another question “What’s in my hand”.
The question comes from a passage in the Bible where Moses is tending his sheep and sees the burning bush. What follows is a dialogue between God and Moses that leads to the question to Moses – “what’s in your hand?” And Moses says he has a staff in his hand.
Whenever God asks a question He already knows the answer. God doesn’t ask a question for His own edification but for ours.
Whenever God asks a question He already knows the answer.
When God asked Moses “what’s in your hand” He already knew the answer, but Moses didn’t. Moses answered that it was a staff but God went on to show Moses that it wasn’t; it was the three most important things in Moses’ life.
The staff was Moses’ profession; his career and the central focus of his life. He was a shepherd and the staff was his tool of trade. A shepherd’s staff is used to herd sheep (by hook or by crook) and to defend the sheep against predators.
The staff was Moses’ wealth; the flock was Moses’ income and his financial security. In current day terms the flock was his salary and superannuation.
The staff was his status; it was the symbol of who he was and his position in society.
From that time on God used Moses’ staff at key points in the exodus of the Israelite people from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land.
From that time on God used Moses’ staff at key points in the exodus of the Israelite people from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land; his encounters with the Pharaoh, parting the Reed Sea (‘Red Sea’), at the battle of Rephidim and striking the rock to get water.
It is the same for all of us: what we have in our hand is what we do in life, our financial security; and our status in society. And the question God asks of us is “what are we doing with what we have?”
We work hard to gain skills that in turn generate income and status, and then we say “I deserve what I have because I worked hard to get it”. We are taught that ‘success is 10% luck and 90% hard work’. The Australian golfer Greg Norman, the Great White Shark, said that his success was ‘10% talent and 90% hard work’ hitting a thousand balls each day in practice. All too often we focus on the hard work and forget the ‘talent’ and ‘luck’.
Picasso or Pro Hart may have achieved fame as artists because they worked hard; yes they had talent and a bit of luck along the way but hard, hard work. But they started with talent. If talent was not the critical catalyst for success then there would be thousands of successful artists because many aspiring artists have also worked hard and failed.
A scientist sterilized some dust, bombarded it with electromagnetism, and created life. The scientist claimed “I have created life”. And God said “Hang on, get your own dust”!
And luck, or chance, is also critical. In the first lecture at a prestigious Law School the professor addressed the students “Congratulations. You are probably thinking you are here because of all your hard work. So hands up everyone here who is the first born in their family”. There was an overwhelming sea of hands. They had just chanced to be oldest sibling, and studies have show over and over that this makes a huge difference. Over half of all US Presidents and Nobel Prize winners have been the eldest child in their families.
Over half of all US Presidents and Nobel Prize winners have been the eldest child in their families.
The critical success factors of talent and luck may chance variations of genetics and the environment. Christianity and other Faiths believe they are gifts from God. Either way we didn’t contribute to these factors and so we can never say that we ‘deserve’ our success because we worked hard; all we can say is that we used the talents and circumstances we received well.
The staff in our hands
We can think that God is particularly pleased with us when we do religious things: get christened, go to church, take communion, pray, sing hymns and so forth. Maybe, maybe not. It seems much more likely that God is pleased with us when we both put in the effort to develop what we have freely received and use what we have to help others rather than ourselves.
If we can sing let us sing to bring joy to others. If we have management skills let us use these skills to make the world a better place. If we are good with children let us help disadvantaged children.
There was a sad case where a young doctor in a poor African country was supported by a benefactor to study overseas so that he could bring specialist skills back to his country. He became a specialist but he never came back; he used the gift he received to increase his own wealth and status. But we cannot criticize him if we also use the gifts we have received for our self-interest and benefit.
Our worldly nature applauds the gifted child who comes first in the class. Our ethical nature applauds the gifted child who spends time helping classmates improve, even at the cost of their own performance. Religion sides with our ethical nature.
We all have talents, some more than others. But it’s not how much you have, rather how you use what you have.
The Gospel has the parable of the talents. One man received 10 talents, one man 5 talents and one man one. When the time of reckoning came both the man with 10 talents and 5 talents returned double their allocation to their master and were equally rewarded. But the man with one talent had done nothing with his and was condemned. ‘Doubling their talents’ is using our skills and status for non-self-interest.
So the big question is what gifts do we have in our hand; and how are we using these gifts to make our world a better place?
Inspiration for this article is from Rick Warren A Purpose of Life Rick Warren TED
Moses holding his staff at the Battle of Rephidim in the painting Victory O Lord by JE Millias from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_of_Moses
