September 9

“So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” Exodus 3:10, NRSV.

Moses was not a great man. He was not respected or famous. He was not eloquent or powerful. In fact, by pharaoh’s orders, Moses should have died as a baby. He should have been killed after he killed an Egyptian. He should have died in the desert, but somehow he managed to survive all of this and God used him for a great purpose.

After Moses married Zipporah, Jethro’s daughter, he tended his father-in-law’s sheep. That’s not exactly a high-status job, but God’s known for using shepherds: Moses, David (1 Samuel 16-1 Kings 2), and the shepherds that worship Jesus sometime after his birth (Luke 2:8-20) are some examples. Jesus even calls himself “the good shepherd” in John 10: 11, and David writes in Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Therefore, God loves people who aren’t brilliant, rich, or famous, and He uses them for His purpose.

Anyway, while Moses tended his father-in-law’s sheep, he saw a strange bush on fire, and he had  to go look at the shiny thing that didn’t make sense.  God could have chosen any form, but He comes as a bush on fire because He knows that Moses will be curious enough to need to see what’s happening. To make things more interesting, the bush starts talking to him! I wonder if Moses started to consider the possibility that he was crazy at this point, or if he just took it as a normal thing. Of course, we all know that the voice in the bush was God, but Moses must have been really freaked out.

Even in shock, Moses somehow manages to argue with God. First, he asks what he’ll call God when he speaks to the Israelites. As far as I know, the Israelites didn’t know God’s name before this, so I’m not sure what difference that would make. God answers, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” (Exodus3: 14). Then, he asks what he’ll do if the people don’t believe him. God changes Moses’s staff into a snake (at which point I would have been gone), makes his hand leprous and heals it, and tells him he’ll be able to turn water from the Nile into blood (Exodus 4:4-9).  Even after all of this, Moses has an argument that seems a little insignificant: “But Moses said to the LORD, ‘O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.'” (Exodus 4: 10). At this point, God became angry, but He still gave Moses help in the form of Moses’s brother, Aaron.

Moses gave a lot of reasons why he couldn’t do God’s work, yet he did many great things with God’s help. This man who doubted God’s ability to use him is now one of the most famous men of the Bible. I’ve always had a problem with the idea that I’m not good enough to be used by God. Whenever I feel called to something, I always have an argument. “I’m not good at talking in front of people” is actually the one that I used while praying about my future when I felt called to major in education. Yet God says in Exodus 4:11, “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?”

I say I believe this to be true, yet my actions and arguments do not suggest it. I am so focused on myself and my lack of ability that I forget that God makes no mistakes, that He will provide me with what I need. If I were in front of that burning bush, I think I might have been a lot like Moses, except that I would have run away when the snake appeared. He just “drew back from it” (Exodus 4: 3). I would have run. I likely would’ve argued that I couldn’t talk in front of people, that I was unworthy in at least a dozen different ways.  Instead I should remind myself that God has made me able to do anything He calls me to, just as He made Moses able.

” I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13, NRSV.