Let’s get the day started with some words of encouragement regarding mushroom sticks, spiders and snakes. It’s that time of the year for mushrooms! And it is a fun walk in the woods!
Until I was 5 years old I lived in a rodeo town in east central Illinois, Palestine. Population – 1185. Then my family moved an hour away to Terre Haute, Indiana. A whopping population of 55,000. As a kid my family would go through the rural back roads between the two towns to visit family several weekends a month.
Mushroom Hunting
In the springtime, one of my favorite stops in making that drive was alongside the road next to any random woods, which was pretty much anywhere. The reason for the stops – Mushroom Hunting! That was the best. One thing to know about the Midwest part of the United States – we love our mushrooms and mushroom hunting.
In order to be a good mushroom hunter you had to find, or already have, a good mushroom stick. You couldn’t start your mushroom hunting until you had one in hand. Somehow, that mushroom stick would help you focus by poking around on the ground and through the leaves with it. And if you had a really good mushroom stick, you would find lots of mushrooms.
Mushroom Sticks, Spiders and Snakes
But the stick was handy in other ways too! Inevitably you would come across a snake. So with the stick, you could keep it at more than arm’s length, poke at it, and it would slither away. And then there were those almost invisible spider webs that stretched across from one tree to another – with the spider right smack in the center of it. You didn’t want to run into one of those, because who knows where the spider would end up – somewhere on you! So with your handy mushroom stick, you could easily slap the spider web away.
Moses had a stick…the Bible called it his staff. God was able to take that stick Moses had, when Moses yielded it to Him, and do some pretty cool stuff with it. First of all, back in that day a good stick was needed for any good shepherd, for his peeps (sheep). That was very practical and handy.
But also, God used Moses’s stick to perform some pretty amazing miracles – parting of the Red Sea, turning a river into blood, and even turning his stick into a snake! And Aaron, with Moses, threw his stick on the ground and it too turned into a snake and then ate all the false prophets sticks that turned into snakes! Wow!
What are You Doing with the Gifts God Has Given You?
You have a stick. We all have a stick. It’s the gift God has given to you that can only be used by you. When you yield your stick (ability, talents, vocation) to God, He can use that stick in some pretty practical and miraculous ways, everyday-walking-around-kind-of-ways. Your stick is your gift, your vocation, your strength(s).
What kind of stick do you have? Are you allowing God to use your stick? Or is it just sitting in the corner of a closet, occasionally being pulled out, looked at, remembered with some great mushroom stories, waiting for the right day somewhere down the road to be used, then putting it back?
Exodus 4:17 niv
“But take this staff (stick) in your hand so you can perform the signs with it.”
God loves working miracles through us. Sometimes those miracles are pretty simple and practical. When we acknowledge the stick is from Him and for His glory, we can come out of the woods (safe from spiders and snakes) and with bags full of mushrooms (many blessings). Yes, back as a kid, we would keep the big folding paper grocery sacks. That’s what we took into the woods when mushroom hunting – and we would fill several of those bags with hundreds of mushrooms!
Challenge of the day: Find your stick. Let God use your stick. Now watch God perform signs, wonders, and miracles and bountiful mushrooms in your life. With the use of your stick, God will bless you and you will be a blessing to many. So be it!
