Blogging Exodus 3:7 - 4:17
And God said, "Come
now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people,
the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
But
Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should
bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
So
He said, “I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I
have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve
God on this mountain ” (Exodus
3:10-12).
From Exodus 3:5 all the way to
Exodus 4:17 is one conversation. Moses
spent that entire 35 verses barefoot, on his knees, in the desert, in front of
a bush --- that was on fire. And, he was
80 years old at the time. So it isn’t
that big a surprise that Moses tried repeatedly to end the conversation early.
Five times Moses offered a question
or observation meant to excuse him from the discussion. Now, we might fault Brother Moses for trying
to shirk his calling, but we cannot accuse him of deception because, according
to God, each of Moses’ excuses were true.
When you tell somebody how
powerless you feel, how undeserving you think you are, you want them to tell
you that you’re not. You want your
friend to affirm your unseen greatness, your untapped potential, your kingship
or queenhood. You want a boost to your
self esteem. Maybe, you want a neutral
but attentive and sympathetic ear. What you
don’t want is someone to listen and reply, “Yeah. You suck in exactly the ways you just
described.” But that is exactly what God
told Moses.
Excuse #1. But Moses said to
God, “Who am I that I should go to
Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Exodus
3:11)
Here we’d expect the Lord to affirm
to Moses that he had all the qualifications he needed. Maybe something like,
“The Lord doesn’t call the qualified but qualifies the called.” Nope.
None of that.
God basically replied, “Yeah. Only way you can pull this off is if God
Himself goes with you, so I will. And as
far as assurances go, you get none. You’ll
know it works when you survive and make it back here.”
“I will certainly be with you. And this shall
be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of
Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain” (Exodus 3:12)
Excuse #2 . Then Moses
claimed that he was unprepared for an examination of his knowledge of correct
theistic nomenclature.
“Then Moses said to God, ‘Indeed,
when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers
has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say
to them?’ ” (Exodus 3:13)
The Lord could’ve told Moses,
“Don’t worry about terminology. Focus on
faith,” but nope.
And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I
AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent
me to you’ ” (Exodus 3:14).
I
AM translates into our Yehovah (Jehovah).
By answering Moses with an actual, correct name the Lord confirmed that “Yes.
You’ve just been making up stuff to call me.”
(In a later blog, we’ll loop back
around to talk about this name thing.)
Excuse #3. Then, Moses
questioned his own credibility.
But suppose they will not believe
me or listen to my voice; suppose they say, “The Lord has not appeared to you.”
(Exodus 4:1).
Right there is where you want your
friend to tell you that your audience will feel your sincerity, they’ll look in
your eyes and see the truth. Right there
is where you want your friend to say, “Don’t worry about what they think.”
But Yehovah was like, “Oh, let me
give you something to show that I DID send you.”
So the Lord said to him, “What is
that in your hand?”
He said, “A rod.”
And He said, “Cast it on the
ground.” So he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled
from it. (Exodus 4:2-4).
God called ole’ scared Moses back
and said, “ ‘Reach out your hand and take it by the
tail.’ And he reached out his hand and caught the snake, and it became a rod in
his hand“ (Exodus 4:4).
There, the Lord said, now “They may
believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” (Exodus 4:5).
But just in case that’s not enough
(because apparently Moses was VERY unbelievable), Furthermore the Lord said to
him, “Now put your hand in your bosom.” And he put his hand in his bosom, and
when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous, like snow.
And He said, “Put your hand in your
bosom again.” So he put his hand in his bosom again, and drew it out of his
bosom, and behold, it was restored like his other flesh.
“Then it will be, if they do not believe you,
nor heed the message of the first sign, that they may believe the message of
the latter sign.
It seemed like the more the Lord
looked at Moses the more unconvincing the reluctant prophet looked, so the Lord
said, “ And it shall be, if they do not believe even these two
signs, or listen to your voice, that you shall take water from the river and
pour it on the dry land. The water which you take from the river will become
blood on the dry land” which roughly translates into: Let me give you one more miracle just in case. (Exodus
4:6-9)
Excuse #4. Moses follow up that exchange by pleading
poor public speaking skills and a speech impediment.
Then Moses said to the Lord, “O my
Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your
servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue” (Exodus 4:10).
God answered, “Yeah, I know and I
don’t care.”
“Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the
mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord?
Now therefore, go, and I will be
with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.” (Exodus 4:10-11).
Excuse #5. The tone of God’s response at this
point indicates that He was pretty tired of Moses’ whining, a verbal cue which
Moses somehow totally missed cause (bless his heart) was, “O my Lord, please
send by the hand of whomever else You may send” (Exodus 4:13).
All that “O, my Lord” stuff didn’t
hide the fact that he’d just told God flat-out “No.” God did NOT miss that, and
Yehovah was PISSED!
The Bible says, “ So
the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses,” (Exodus 4:14).
The rest of the conversation,
verses 14-17, is a monologue that you have to read in the tone of an angry
Black mother’s voice. I’ll paraphrase.
Ain’t Aaron your
brother? Can’t he speak well?!? No don’t
answer me when I’m asking you a question!
Aaron’s on his way. No that ain’t
a question! Yeah, I’d already sent for
you some help because I’M GOD and I knew you had a little stutter before I even
I called you over here to this burning bush!
So now this is what you gone do. You
gone tell Aaron EVERY WORD I tell you. I
tell you. You tell Aaron. Aaron does the public speaking.
So now, you gone
take this stick that turns into a snake and you gone take your self back to
Egypt like I told you to and do all the stuff that I just showed you how to do.
Period.
The next verse is Moses telling
Jethro that he has to go back to Egypt.
Moses wasn’t any more qualified
than he was before his confrontation with God in the desert. He was still a fugitive murderer raised by
the rich folk in the palace who talked about revolution for a minute before
running away and nobody back home has even seen him for 40 years. Moses was still going to show up in Goshen
with a new name for his people’s ancestral God, talking about God sent me to
set you free, and he wouldn’t even be able to speak for himself.
But he wemt.
The self-critical things you say
may be actually be true. God knows you
may be that unqualified, discredited, technically ignorant, and inarticulate. You think the Lord is going to say
otherwise? God isn’t going to lie to you
about you.
But God knew all of your issues and
limitations BEFORE He called you to this position of authority and
influence.
God knows and He doesn’t care.
The Lord doesn’t require perfection
or even adequacy. God requires obedience
and faithfulness.
And He said to me, “My grace is
sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
But He gives more grace. Therefore
He says: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6).
Just do the thing. Do it as well as you can, which may be pretty
badly at first. Do it because it is
yours to do. Accept the help that God sends you (like Moses accepting Aaron),
and do the thing.
Don’t do the thing because you can
do it well. Do the thing because God
sent you to do it. That’s obedience.
Keep doing the thing with the help
God sends, building the hard headed, attitude-laden,
getting-on-your-last-nerve, vision-hating team God sends you (like Moses did
with the elders of Israel). That’s faithfulness.
That affirmation you’re waiting
on? Stop waiting. It ain’t coming.
Those self-esteem boosting words of
encouragement? Not gonna happen. Move da’ crap on.
If social media is enough, you can
get your fix of “encouragement” by just asking for it. But you’ll also get the trolls who take your
right back now 6 or 7 pegs by exaggerated or accurate recall of your faults.
So don’t expect validation in words
of affirmation.
Validation comes at the end, not at
the beginning.
Moses knew that he was the right
one only AFTER he had done the things in Egypt and brought the people back to
Mt. Horeb/ Mt. Sinai.
The disciples knew that following
Jesus was right AFTER He appeared to them physically resurrected.
You will know that your work has
not been in vain, you will know that your calling was true, but you probably
won’t know until AFTER you’ve faithfully done the doggone thing.
So if you really need that
confirmation and assurance ---- stop making excuses, get up off your knees, and
get to work.
--Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and consultant for
education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is
pastor of Miles Chapel CME
Church in Fairfield,
Alabama. He writes a blog called A Word
to the Wise at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
Support by check or money order
may be mailed to
Miles Chapel CME Church
P O Box 132
Fairfield, Al 35064
