DAILY DEVOTIONAL – August 11, 2020
“But, I.”
Prayer: God, You are the Great I AM, the First and the Last, the God who goes before us, and the God who is with us. Reassure our restless hearts of Your faithfulness and of the victory You have already won for us in the blood of Your Son, Jesus, our Lord. It’s in His name that we pray. Amen.
Scripture: Exodus 3:7-12
7 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, 8 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. 9 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. 10 Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” 12 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.”
Devotion – “But, I.”
We know from the speech that Stephen gave in Acts 7, just before he was martyred having been stoned to death, that Moses spent 40 years as a shepherd in the land of Midian. Moses had to flee as a result of his murdering one of Pharaoh’s men who was beating one of the Hebrew slaves. Having grown up as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter and part of the royal family, Moses was now on the run as a fugitive from his adoptive grandfather who would not have any tolerance for the treasonous murder Moses committed.
Going from the courts of Pharaoh to the nomadic life of a shepherd in exile had to be a humbling experience on many levels for Moses. I am sure the guilt of killing another human weighed heavy on him as well. Add to this the fact that Moses was somehow slow of speech ( 4:10) and we can start to understand to some extent why Moses responded as he did to the Lord’s announcement that he would be the one to set God’s people free. Moses said, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
The last words Moses heard from his own Hebrew people before running away from Egypt still probably rang through His head. “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” – Exodus 2:14. Moses thought he had hid the body and covered up his crime, but now, it was clear that not only was it known that he killed the Egyptian, but that it clearly did nothing to elevate him in the eyes of his own people he thought he was advocating for by murdering the Egyptian soldier. How was Moses supposed to go back to those same people now and convince them to listen to him? How was he supposed to convince Pharaoh to listen to him, and not just immediately throw him in prison or worse?
At the very least, I think it is safe to say that Moses was filled with anxiety at the thought of having to return to Egypt. What makes you anxious? What fills you with anxiety? Whatever those events or circumstances are, they all share one thing in common. You. What you cant’ anticipate, what you don’t know, what you don’t understand, what you fear may or may not happen, what you may not be able to control. We are at the center of our own anxiety, and Moses was at the center of his.
Moses said to the Lord, “Who am I?!” “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” What God says next is something we all need to listen to very carefully, not only when we are most anxious, but especially when we are convinced we know what will happen and when we feel in control enough not to be anxious. God replied and told Moses, “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.”
You see friends, Moses’ anxiety was a result of his focus on himself. God’s answer to Moses and for Moses was to remind him who exactly it was he was speaking to, who it was that found Moses hiding in the middle of the Midian desert, who it was that miraculously appeared in fire without consuming that bush which was on fire, who it was that was sending Moses, and whose people it was God was sending him to. To emphasize this point even further, God tells Moses he will know everything will be okay, when everything is okay; and it will be okay because God said it would be. “This shall be the sign that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
If I may be so bold as to summarize the point I think God was making: “You’re right, Moses. You going there alone wouldn’t work out. You going there in order to try and redeem yourself would work out even worse. You going there with your own plan would end in catastrophe. That is why, Moses, I am not giving you a plan, but calling you to trust Me. That is why I am not sending you alone, Moses, I am and will be with you as I save my people.”
The only cure for anxiety, is to trust the only One there is who knows our weakness, because in His Almighty power He became weakest of all, collapsing under the weight of His cross. The only cure for anxiety, is to trust the only One there is who knows our nothingness, because in the riches of His grace he became poorest of all in order to offer the priceless sacrifice of His blood for our forgiveness. The only cure for anxiety, is to trust the only One who sees our sinfulness, who sees how helpless we are to save ourselves, and says to us as He said to Moses, “But, I am with you.”
The Great I AM is with you my friends. Who am I? Who are you? We are nothing and nobody without Jesus, but Jesus is with us to the very end of the age. The peace that God has promised to give us, the serenity to endure even the most difficult times in life and the confidence that helps us endure with true everlasting joy comes only through faith in the God who is, in His goodness, in His faithfulness and in His perfect provision that comes in His perfect time and in His perfect way. We are set free from worry and anxiety not by believing in God for the sake of getting what we want and using faith as a bargaining chip, but by truly trusting in God with our whole life because of who He is. He is the God of all love and mercy and compassion who did not spare even His own Son for the sake of redeeming us, forgiving us of our sins, saving us from death and graciously giving us the assurance of eternal life in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Thanks for joining me today for another time of devotion, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today, and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
