Worth Repeating - February 1, 2017

Exodus 3: 11; 4: 1, 10–13 But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? . . . What if they do not believe or listen to me? . . . O lord, I have never been eloquent. . . . I am slow of speech and tongue.” The Lord said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? . . . Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

Service to which God calls must not be refused because of a sense of unworthiness or inadequacy.*

Like Moses, we make excuses for why we can’t go where God has called us. We have other obligations. We can’t afford it. And the big one: fear. Do we really think that his work relies on what we are able to do on our own? Does God have to negotiate and make deals with us to get us to do his will?

Did Moses forget who he was talking to? Was he really so inadequate? Was he just being modest? Or perhaps he was trying to get out of obeying. To be fair to Moses, what had he done in the past 40 years to prepare himself for the very important (and dangerous) job of leading the Israelites out of Egypt? Was there any difference between herding Hebrews in the wilderness and herding sheep in the desert?

After 25 years in a career that I loved, I found myself unemployed. My husband still had a steady income so God continued to provide for all of my physical needs, but I wasn’t used to feeling so purposeless. When I thought of Moses and his 40 years of preparation in the desert, I wondered if he, too, felt purposeless as he tended his sheep. I began to pray that I would be a good shepherd during my “40 years in the desert” as God prepares me for my next ministry. After all, the sheep were Moses’ ministry until God called him back to Egypt.

Sometimes the Lord calls us to do tasks that are far beyond our “giftedness” – jobs that will stretch our faith and force us to use some unfamiliar spiritual muscles.*