One of the things I love is the silence of early mornings. I love being able to sit in my Big-Man chair with my pot of coffee and my Bible open on my laptop and ponder. Honestly, it’s one of my most productive times of day and I’m amazed at how fast two or three hours can fly by. One morning recently, I was re-reading the story of Moses and something caught my eye. Specifically, it’s the time when God introduced himself to His unsuspecting servant right before He informs Moses that Moses was going to lead God’s people out of Egypt.
I guess I’m fascinated by it because it just seems so aberrant after all of the events that had taken place in Moses’ life: His mother saved his life by leaving him in a basket in the Nile. He grew up as a step-child in the house of Pharaoh. He killed an Egyptian guard and ended up a fugitive in
Midian. In Midian, he married the daughter of a priest and ended up tending his sheep “on the far side of the desert” (kinda makes me wonder if that wasn’t intentional but I digress…) It is here, on the far side of the desert, that Moses hears a voice: “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then He said, “I am the God of your father…” Exodus 3:4-6. Now, let’s review for a moment….Moses’ biological father is a slave in Egypt and Moses would, at best, have faint memories of him, if any at all. And out of nowhere, hundreds of miles from Egypt a voice comes from a burning bush, introducing Itself to Moses as The God of Moses’ father!
Now, here’s the fascinating part for me: On what basis should this God of Moses’ father be trusted? Honestly, after all Moses has been through, I struggle to see anything from Moses’ perspective where the God of Moses’ father has shown himself to be anything of substance to anyone in Moses’ life.” There are no circumstantial reasons for Moses to trust God and yet, here God is.
And maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s the principle that you and I need to see…I think too often I look back at the circumstances of the past and let those elements define who I and God are in the present. Have you ever done that? Have you ever looked at past sorrows and joys or successes and failures and let them define who you are and who you will be moving forward? I think Moses did. Look at the next part of the conversation: But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” – Exodus 3:11. Moses was looking at his past (his upbringing, his failures, his surroundings) and was telling God and himself that there was NO POSSIBLE WAY that he could be part of the plan to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.
But, while Moses was defining who he is by his past, God was defining who Moses is through who God is: And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” And Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.‘” (Exodus 3:13-14. And perhaps that is what we need to see too: God is who God is (regardless of our past) and God will be who God will be as we move forward with Him into the future.
So here’s the question: Where is your focus today? Is it on the past and present circumstances and are those paralyzing you from moving forward? Or, is it on the One true God who transcends those circumstances – who has a tremendous plan for the ages and deeply wants you and me to be included in that plan? My hope for you (and me) is the latter.