Then the LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, 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 bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” (Exodus 3:7-12 ESV)
Yahweh has a task for Moses. He wants Moses to go to Pharaoh and somehow bring the children of Israel out of Egypt, bring them to this very mountain on which Yahweh has appeared to Moses, Mt. Horeb or Sinai as it is known. God wants Israel to return to the land of the Canaanites, a place they left 400 years earlier under Jacob’s and Joseph’s leadership during famine, but that is now flowing with richness and abundance.
Moses, who was ready some 40 years ago to slay an Egyptian and mediate the conflict between Hebrews, no longer sees himself as leadership material. “Who am I,” he asks. God does not answer with how gifted Moses is or how special, or what a great leader he will be, though none of those things are wrong. He answers with, “I will be with you.” No matter how gifted we are or special, what is required for successfully serving Yahweh is Yahweh’s determination to make us successful and accomplish His purposes.
Yahweh has seen Israel’s suffering and is ready to respond. It may bother us that He saw Israel’s suffering 40 or more years before and is only choosing now to act. But He knows the right time and His response is genuinely motivated by His compassion for His people. He hears our cries. In His wisdom He responds when He responds, having laid out for Abraham 400 years earlier that this would be the timing for Abraham’s offspring to be enslaved in Egypt. He sees the bigger picture so we must trust Him with the timing.
In one scene from the movie Superman, Clark Kent is upset after a football game in which he was reduced to being a manager. He possesses supernatural powers yet must hide them from peers who don’t accept him because he is not a star, only a team manager. Kent’s father slips an arm around the soon-to-be Superman and says, “Son, you are here for a special reason. I don’t know what that reason is, but I know one thing—it’s not to score touchdowns.”
Knowing what God has called you for is more than knowing your abilities and gifts. It is listening to Him as He speaks into your soul what He wants you to do. Maybe it is correcting something grossly amiss. Maybe it is encouraging people who have no one in their corner. Maybe it is providing leadership where there is none. The point is, what He calls you to do He will equip you to do and be with you in the doing.
A Thimble-full of Theology for Daily Living 