Thursday, April 17, 2008

Who's is it Anyway?

I'm always fascinated by the story of Moses and the burning bush found in Exodus 3-4. Moses is just walking along, minding his own business when he sees a bush burning and decides to check it out. That ends up being a huge divergence of his life path.

You know the story, I wanted to focus on just one aspect of it. God tells Moses to go back and tell Pharaoh to let His people go. Moses says "Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant." In other words - I wasn't a good speaker before I met you, Mr. Burning Bush, and you haven't exactly given me a radio announcer voice while I've been standing here.

Look at what God says: "Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth..."

Earlier God asked Moses what he had in his hand (a staff). God told Moses to throw down his staff and it became a snake. This was to be one of the signs Moses would show Pharaoh.

At the end of chapter 4 God says "And take in your hand this staff, with which you shall do the signs." Then in chapter 5 "And Moses took the staff of God in his hand."

So what's going on here? What started out as Moses' staff becomes the "staff of God" after Moses threw it down. What was Moses' voice became the voice of God (through Aaron as his personal PA system).

The point is this: that God made your voice and has placed things in your hand - talents, gifts, desires. If you recognize that they can be used by God no matter how small and that they actually were created by God for His use - it is amazingly freeing to just let God take you and use you without worry about not being good enough.

Pastor Tom

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post Tom. I take great comfort in reading God's requirements for use in I Corinthians 1:26-29

Tom Fuller said...

What did Steve Hopkins say in his post - the "folly" of our preaching?

I'm so glad God uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise because many times I feel like I fit into the "foolish" category quite nicely!

Tom

Anonymous said...

From one fool to another, Amen! :)