Excuses, excuses

And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say. And he said, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send. – Exodus 4.10-13

We usually think about Moses as a man of great faith and courage, and he was. But when God called him to go back and lead the Hebrews out of Egypt he was afraid. The scriptures tell us that Moses was the meekest of all men, so maybe he really, genuinely felt that he could not do it.

Whether it was real meekness or fear that motivated Moses he did not feel up to the task. ‘I am not eloquent, I am slow of speech.’

Like God didn’t know that? ‘Who made your mouth? Didn’t I do it? Now go, and I will show you what to say.’

Moses’ excuses were not enough. Finally he just said ‘send somebody else God.’

‘Here I am Lord, send Aaron.’

Despite all the assurances, despite meeting God in all His holiness and power, despite God’s promise to tell him what to say, Moses was not willing to go.

God knows us. He made us. He made our ears and our eyes and our mouths. He knows exactly what we can and can’t do even if we don’t know.

Our petty attempts at making excuses just simply don’t work because God already knows. Where God guides He will always provide and He will always enable us to do whatever he wants us to do.

God doesn’t need our excuses. We don’t need our excuses. They do no good. Going forward can be scary, but God made us for the tasks He calls us to.

Let’s just do it, shall we?