The Answer Is in Your Hands

There is an story about a wise old man in a village that always seemed to have the right answer to every situation, and to every question. One day, a young man decided to challenge the old man, and prove that the wise man was not so wise. He held a songbird behind his back, and asked the old man to say whether the bird was alive or dead. The plan was, that if the old man answered dead, then he could produce the live bird, and prove the old man wrong; but if the old man answered alive, then he could wring the bird's neck, and produce a dead bird, again proving the old man wrong. The old man looked the young man in the eye, and said, "The answer is in your hands."
Many times we fret about what we don't have, and don't pay nearly enough attention to what we do have. In 2 Kings 4, there is a story about a widow woman, the survivor of a man that was faithful, who has two sons, and a great deal of debt. She asks Elijah to help her, and he asks her what she has. She tells him that all she has is a pot of oil. He tells her to go and borrow vessels from her neighbors, as many as she can get, and pour the oil into the vessels. She filled all of these vessels, and still had oil in her pot. She sold the oil, paid the debt, and then returned the borrowed vessels. God has a way of making the things that we have stretch to meet the need.
In 1 Kings 17, there is a similar story with Elijah the prophet and a widow woman who had a little bit of meal in the bottom of barrel and a small portion of oil in a cruse. Because she was faithful, and prepared food for the man of God before feeding her son or herself, God blessed the barrel and the cruse, and they didn't give out until after the draught ended.
Let me add a cautionary note. I know that there are "ministries" out there that will implore you to trust God, and give to their cause more than you can really afford. I would implore you to trust God, and follow His leading. If He leads you to overextend yourself to support a ministry that you believe in, that's one thing; if a ministry pressures you to overextend yourself to support them, that's a very different thing. If you follow God, you can't go wrong, but there are an awful lot of people that claim to represent God, and are trusting that they will never have to give an account for what they have asked of you. Not only are they putting their trust in the wrong things, they are asking you to, as well. If the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into the ditch, but you don't have to be blind. The book of James says that if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not. If it comes down to a choice between paying your light bill or giving to a ministry, well, if it's of God, then God will find a way to pay your light bill, but if it's not of God, then you're going to be sitting in the dark, wondering how God could let this happen to you (but if you had sought God about it, He would have warned you not to give that money to those people). Don't sign your light bill money over to some preacher unless you know with absolute certainty that it's what God wants you to do (It’s okay to fleece the Lord, Gideon did it).
God can do a lot with a little, and sometimes we feel that we just don't have enough. If we let God have His way, though, a little can be plenty. Just as Jesus said that if you have faith as a mustard seed, you can move mountains, so can you do a great deal with just a little time, or a little effort, or a little bit of money. Remember the widow with the two mites? It didn’t seem like much to the disciples, but God saw how much it was to her—it was all she had. Pray for God's direction, and the leading of His Holy Ghost, and He can make a lot out of whatever little you have, too, provided that you are willing to use it for His glory.

The Answer Is in Your Hands

There is an old legend about a wise old man who lived in a village, and a young man in the same village that decided to best the old man. "I'll show people that he's not so smart." So he took a bird, and he held the bird behind his back, with the bird's body in one hand, and it's head in the other. He then challenged the old man to tell him whether the bird was alive or dead; thinking that, if the old man answered that the bird was dead, he could produce the living bird, but if the old man answered 'alive,' then he could wring the bird's neck and produce the dead bird. The old man simply replied, "The answer is in your hands."

In John 8, the scribes and the pharisees brought a woman to Jesus who had been taken 'in the very act' of adultery, and asked him whether they should stone her. He stooped down and started writing on the ground, as if he didn't hear them. Eventually He made the now-famous statement, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

There are all kinds of subtleties to this situation: First of all, if she was taken in the very act, shouldn't there have been another participant? It's doggone difficult to commit adultery alone. Secondly, what was it He was writing in the dirt? Third, if they really wanted to see justice done, why were they coming to Him, and not to the established legal system? (of course, the passage answers that question: they came to Him specifically so that they could make an accusation against Him) What accusation were they trying to concoct? Wouldn't they have expected Jesus to commend the law of Moses?

All right, let's take this one step at a time: First, where was the man? I can only speculate; the Bible doesn't say. Let me suggest that it isn't really important, the point of the story is to teach us forgiveness. As far as my personal opinion, I suspect that he was standing right there with a stone in his hand. Consider for a moment, that the whole idea here was to find some excuse to accuse Jesus of something. That means that these religious people went looking for an adulteress, and were fortunate enough to catch one red-handed. How did they know where to look for one? I suspect that they had a pretty good idea where to find one, because they had each sought out such a woman in the past. When they found her, she was with one of their own--but that didn't matter, because the object of the exercise was to get Jesus (it's been said that Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, Protestants don't recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian church, and Southern Baptists don't recognize each other at Hooters; not to suggest that Southern Baptists are really any different than the rest of us--but I think that the Pharisees must have had that mindset as well--it's human nature to overlook the faults of one's friends).

Second, what did He write? Again, pure speculation, the Bible doesn't say. It was probably something very personal to the men standing in judgment. One thing that has been suggested: It was a list of the names of the woman's accusers, with recently committed sins (possibly even dates and times that they had been with her). After all, He was God manifest in the flesh, He would have known these things, but, it might have been a greater show of power than He was willing to give them. Someday, I'll get a chance to ask Him, in person (and He may just tell me that I don't need to know).

Third, the accusation. This is the part that most people don't get. Under the law of Moses, she should have been stoned. However, Israel was under Roman occupation. Adultery was not a capital crime under Roman law. As a matter of fact, stoning was not allowed under Roman rule (why do you think that the Pharisees didn't just take Jesus out and stone Him?); that would have been considered murder. If Jesus had said, "Stone her," then they could have accused Him to the Romans of not obeying Roman law. If He had simply said, "Let her go," then they could have accused Him to the people of Israel as not respecting the law of Moses. They figured that, either way He answered, they could get Him in trouble with somebody. They didn't really care who.

Again, this isn't really important. The important thing was that it was a lesson in forgiveness. None of us are perfect, each of us will need forgiveness at various times along our journey. We have to be willing to forgive others. That's not always easy, but if we understand that even those people that we have the hardest time getting along with are not that mush different from ourselves, and that, in some ways, forgiving others is forgiving one's self. Can you forgive others? The answer is in your hands.