Who's in Your Hands Right Now
Daily Scripture
2 Timothy 2:1-2
You, therefore, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. What you have heard from me through many witnesses, entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well.
Daily Reflection & Prayer
Paul doesn’t start with the instruction to pass things on. He starts by telling Timothy where his strength actually comes from, the grace that’s in Christ, and only then tells him what to do with it: entrust what he’s learned to faithful people, people who can be trusted to carry something forward and hand it to others in turn. It’s a chain built for continuation, not for any one link to hold onto the whole thing forever. What Paul poured into Timothy was never meant to stop with Timothy.
That’s the real end point of this whole week. Samuel’s calling, Moses blessing Joshua, Hannah releasing her son, Peter’s restoration, Barnabas’s risk. None of it was designed to end with the person who received it. Every mentor in this story was once someone else’s Samuel, waiting to be seen and invested in before they became the ones doing the seeing.
- Think of the people who most shaped your faith. What’s one specific thing you learned from them that you haven’t yet passed on to anyone else?
- Who is a specific person you could invest in this fall, not someday, but starting this week? What’s one concrete step you could take to reach out to them in the next few days?
Prayer
Faithful God, thank you for every person who entrusted something of you to me. Forgive me for holding onto what I’ve learned instead of passing it forward. Give me the same faithfulness Paul asked of Timothy, willing to invest in someone who will one day do the same for others. Show me today who you’re asking me to reach. Amen.
GPS Insights
Rev. Daniel Mhone
Rev Daniel Mhone is the Conference Superintendent of the Malawi Provisional Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church since 2007. In this leadership position, serving with integrity of heart, he has total dependency on prayer to God for guidance and wisdom. He marvels how the English Premier League (EPL) players accurately pass the ball from one player to the other with the ultimate goal as a team to score and win the game. His ultimate wish is that we, as Christians, learn how to make accurate moves in ministry by passing on to others according to their strategic positions and gifts of grace, so that we would achieve much more in ministry. He is married to Moty for 38 years and God has blessed them with three biological children and one grandchild, Muwemi, plus countless other children whom they support and enjoy living life together.
The power of calculated and targeted witnessing is revealed once a Christian leader has embraced the vision and mission of God’s ministry to go beyond a leader himself/herself and envision the continuity of ministry to the disciples doing greater things than their leaders as demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ who said, “… he will even do greater things than these …” John 14: 12, a thing I can attest we have not yet seen among many Christian leaders who are doing more than what our Lord Jesus Christ did though Jesus Christ expressed this as something possible. In this case, continuity of witness beyond leaders themselves can only be possible if the truth is entrusted to the faithful people (Disciples) who will be able to teach others as well.
A quick observation is that there is a miscalculated movement where not many have heard the truth in order to go out and witness or if they have heard, they have not gone out to witness but left the witnessing of the gospel message to the called few such as Pastors or Prophets. In this case, for those who have heard, Paul’s advice to Timothy is the way to go where the message should be entrusted to the faithful people who must teach others as well. As for those targeted Disciples, the majority have not been faithful to reach out and teach others hence the continuity in witnessing is generally on the decline.
My personal experience is that strategic entrusting of what has been heard from leaders through many witnesses to the faithful people is a missing gap while sporadic witness within own circles seem to be the practice of the day thereby making witnessing for Christ becoming less impactful in our faith communities today. Growth has mostly been stunted in many instances of our witnessing.
The question “who’s in your hands right now” therefore becomes a wake-up call for all Christian leaders in addressing what message each leader is carrying, to whom is the message being entrusted? And a close check out of whether those entrusted with the message are faithful and able to teach others for the continuity and advancement of the Kingdom of God. Therefore, no one entrusted with the Gospel of Jesus Christ should end with himself/herself but act by passing on the baton stick in a relay race from one witnessing Believer to the others. A call is therefore, place the message in the right hands.
