It's All About God

Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and lead the children of Israel out of Egypt?" He answered, "I will be with you."
Exodus 3:11,12

Moses has come a long way since he tried to bring deliverance by his own hand in Egypt. He thought killing the Egyptian would signal to the Israelites that he was to be their deliverer (see Acts 7:25). Now, after having spent 40 years in the desert, he is on the other side of things. Rather than being confident of his own abilities, he has no confidence in them. But the principle is the same- he is still thinking only in terms of his own strength. He is not considering God's.

Faith is about abandoning ourselves to God. When God calls, we answer and obey. God always calls us to do things that we cannot possibly accomplish in our own strength. That way we must rely on Him, and when it is accomplished, it will be clearly seen that it was done by the power of God and not by our own understanding or strength.

The real difficulty is getting ourselves into this place where we can truly let God be everything. The Scripture says that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart, (1 Sam. 16:7). So when God uses someone, we have a tendency to think it is the person doing it. Consequently, we also have a tendency to think that if God is calling us to do something then we will have to do it on our own. But that's not true. In fact, it's just about the opposite of the truth. The truth is that we must learn to get out of the way so God can truly use us. It is all of God when His work is accomplished.

Getting back to Moses, he thought he could deliver Israel in his own strength. It took 40 years in the desert to re-train his thinking. What was he doing all that time? We don't know. But from the little that we do know, it doesn't seem like it was anything grand or glorious. It was just normal living. He got married, had a son, and tended sheep for his father in law. Normal living has a way of training us in humility and faith- if we will let it. It's learning to pray and trust God in the menial things of life that we are trained for greater things. We must be faithful with a little before He gives us more.

I find myself today still in the place of discerning exactly what God is saying to me. In the meantime, He is being very faithful to train me in normal living. I am beginning to see how very much I still need to learn. Going back to yesterday's thought, it's not so much about information, but transformation. I know a lot of things, but I really need to learn how they're to be lived out. I hope it won't take 40 years. But if it does, then I hope and pray I will be ready for God's mission when I encounter him in the fire and hear Him call me to the impossible.