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Exodus 3.11; 4.1, 10–13 (NIV)
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.”
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Service to which God
calls must not be refused because of a sense of unworthiness or inadequacy.*
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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.
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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.”*
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*Quote sources available upon request.
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