JUST LIKE MOSES . . . HUH?

JUST LIKE MOSES . . . HUH?

by Brenda L. Agee

            I spent a lot of time with my two youngest grandchildren this past week and it was absolutely wonderful and the most perfect week a grandmother could ask for!

            Okay, let me start again.

            I spent a lot of time with my two youngest grandchildren this past week and I am exhausted!  They are great, smart, fun, and funny, but I'm not always able to keep up with them either physically or, well to be honest, in any way.  My son lives in the apartment downstairs and he helped tremendously - especially when I needed a nap.  It's rather a joint venture.  In fact, he and I are in the only two apartments in the building so the grandchildren run up and down the stairs like it's one big house.  But right now I am alone and relaxing and it seems all I can remember is just how great and easy the week was and I am excited about their coming again soon to stay all night.

            However, sitting here in gentle thought my mind has turned to last Sunday morning, the 10th of August, and how I thought my week was going to start.  There I was minding my own business, comfortably sitting on the pew at church and trying to listen to the sermon but my Pastor's words kept interrupting me.  You know, words like "faith", "obedience",  and - wait until you hear this one! - "every time you fail to do what you know God wants you to do, your faith weakens".   He may have said our faith is less, or something else like that but it still meant the same.  Well!  That was not what I'd expected to hear.  And even if I do go to church expecting to hear those words, they don't always pierce my heart as they did last week.  On top of all that, it had only been a few minutes before Pastor's sermon that I had admitted to the whole congregation that God had called me nearly 18 years ago to do something for Him and how I've struggled with it, ignored it, tried to argue with God about it, and finally admitted to God that I was simply afraid that I would fail at what He wanted.  I guess my faith had been getting less and less in that area over the years.

            Last week, as many of you know, I started this God, Me, and a Blog Makes 3.  It was the beginning of an end.  My struggle over writing had ended and my new surrender to do so has begun.  Almost 18 years ago I first knew God wanted me to write and it has never been out of my mind for even a day since that time.  I am not proud of my having waited so long.  In fact, I am horrified that I waited to do what the only living, righteous, Holy God wanted me to do.  I can't go back in my mind and think of how things might have been if I had written like He wanted, but I do know that today, I am thankful for His never letting me go and His never washing His hands of me, so to speak.

            I promised God, myself, and any who would read this blog that I would be honest in what and how I wrote and so I'm telling you now that I've wrestled with God, like Jacob did.  You may never struggle with surrendering to God and if so, I do wish you could tell me how you manage because even though I love God with all of my heart and I believe that He loves me beyond all understanding, I know that I was in a battle all those years.  I resisted, then I said to myself "I can do this", then I tried to ignore it all, and then I would say again, "I can do this."

            It was during one of my lesser struggling moments that I decided I was just like Moses.  I knew God understood what I meant when I said I was like Moses, but when I thought about telling my Christian friends, I tried in my mind to hear them respond with a supportive, "Why yes!  I see what you mean.", but instead I saw their faces go from shock to disbelief, curiosity, and even amusement.  In fact, I'm quite sure I actually heard them laugh aloud.  So I decided to tell the one friend who had always understood me.

            I was in one of those places where I thought I could write so I went to my friend and tried to make light of the whole situation that I believed God wanted me to write and how I had put it off.  As an aside, let me suggest that you never make light of God wanting you to do something because it just doesn't work out.  Now, let's go back to my friend.  I hinted to her that I had decided I was a lot like Moses.  I didn't tell her at first what I meant but mere seconds after my statement, she turned her gaze away from me and looked around the room.  I waited, but no response.  She looked at the ceiling, she looked from wall to wall, she looked at the floor.  I waited even longer, but still no response.  I wanted to tell her that her carpet wasn't going to part like the Red Sea and that there would be no lice, frogs, flies, or locusts showing up but before I could do so, she looked at me.  Then, she burst out laughing!  She laughed!

            Before she fell out of her chair from laughing so hard, I reminded her that there was a before-and-after Moses and that I was like the "before" Moses.  I was like the Moses who stayed in the wilderness for 40 years and who, I believed, was content to stay in the wilderness for 40 years.  Maybe Moses was just being comfortable in the wilderness when he had his burning bush moment, or maybe he wasn't.  Or maybe yet, that is just the perception I got from all of the times I've watched my favorite movie, Cecile B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments.  I just don't know.  Neither do I know how long Moses' burning bush moment lasted, by mine lasted nearly 18 years.

            Not that Moses was ignoring God during his 40 years.  On the contrary, I believe Moses was learning about God and becoming comfortable in who he, Moses, was.  That's also where I was when God let me know He wanted me to write.  I was becoming more and more comfortable with who I was.  I had already gone through great pain and unspeakable experiences in my life while simultaneously knowing remarkable joy because of my faith in God.  I had even gone through a long period of counseling, which God used as a part of His healing me from my pain.  So having gone through much pain and then great healing, I was becoming comfortable with myself. 

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            In the book of Exodus, chapters 3 and 4 in the New International Version of the Bible, we Moses find tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, at Mount Horeb.  Often called "The Mountain of God", Mount Horeb is where Moses encountered God in the burning bush.  God quickly let Moses know that He, God, was the God of Moses' ancestry: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Moses bowed himself before the only Almighty God.  God doesn't waste words, and He got right to the point.  “So now, go.  I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”  But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

            That is point number one (1).  Moses asked, "Why me . . . ?"

            God gave Moses a lengthy but perfect answer but even then 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?”

            To paraphrase, Moses said, "Oh yeah? Well, they are going to ask just who sent me and what am I to say then?"  Point two (2)

            But that wasn't enough.  Moses, again questioning God, said, "What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?” 

            We know what that means.  Sometimes we are actually making a statement but we try to deflect what we are saying by using a question.  Again paraphrasing, Moses was saying, "They won't listen and they won't believe it was you who sent me."  Here we are at point three (3).

            I love the next part because God had told Moses to get up and go but again Moses had to say something.  Ever known anyone like that?  It can be frustrating!  You give them all of the answers but they still have to question you again and again?  "But what about this?  But what about that?  Oh yeah?  But what about . . . ?"   I may have done that from time to time.  Okay, well yes, I have done that.

            At least Moses tried to be polite and said, 'Excuse me, but . . ."   In fact, the Bible tells us that Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”  The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute?  Who gives them sight or makes them blind?  Is it not I, the Lord?  Now go I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

            Point four (4).  "I just don't know what to say.  I know I'll stutter and mess it up." 

            However, it all came down to what Moses really wanted to say, all along, "Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”

            And there we have it, point five (5).  "I don't want to do it.  Can't you send someone else?"

            I went through all of the excuses that Moses went through.  Over the years I said them all and added a few of my own but God's answer was always the same. I said . . .
1.       Why me? After all, there are others who could write much better than me.  But God said ,"It doesn't matter, just write."    
2.      I really don't know what to say God. But God said, "It doesn't matter, just write."
3.      Well, no one is going to believe me because I hid things for so long.  But God said, "It doesn't matter, just write."
4.      When I think about writing, there are too many people who will know everything I've wanted to hide.  But God said, "It doesn't matter, just write."
5.      But no one will understand!  But God said, "It doesn't matter, just write." 
6.      It's too personal.  But God said, "It doesn't matter, just write."
7.      I don't want my family to read what I'll write.  I can just imagine what they will say and how they won't believe me.  But God said, "It doesn't matter, just write." 
8.      But my children or later, my grandchildren . . .  But God said, "It doesn't matter, just write."
9.      I then told God I had always remembered what J. I. Willard, my Pastor from 40 years ago, told me "When all else is said and done, it's just me and God."   And God said, "Now you are beginning to understand."
10.   I admitted to God that I was scared and that I can't do it on my own but that I am willing because He wanted me to do so.  And God said to me, "Go on . . . "
11.    Lastly, I said okay, I would write simply because God asked me to.  And God said, "Whew!  It sure took you long enough!

            Well okay, maybe God didn't exactly say that last line, but I do know once I said yes, no matter what, I'll do it only for Him, I felt God's peace that passes all understanding.  I could still use all of those excuses over and over again, but I realize now that I would be living in self-doubt and fear.  I know what my Pastor meant last week when he said that our faith weakens every time we say no to God.  I lived it for too long.  For me, giving up and giving in to God will always come down to that one statement from J. I. Willard, "When all else is said and done, it's just me and God."

            You may ask what all of this has to do with my opening statements about my grandchildren but that's easy to answer.  It has everything to do with them.  I have five grandchildren.  I want them to know the truth about God and I feel a great responsibility to teach them the things of God.  But how can I teach them about God if I, myself, have not listened or been faithful?  Grandchildren are a legacy of love from God.  I know mine will remember times when I was less patient, less understanding.  The older ones will remember when they had to stay downstairs with their dad (my son) when I was ill and the younger ones will remember when I had to send them downstairs to be with their uncle (my son) for the same reason.  They will remember the times when I couldn't do the things with them that their other grandmothers could do because of my ill health.  They will all remember when my heart was weak and they were the ones who cleaned my apartment.   
            And although my health is poor and I am weak, will I be strong enough and faithful enough to teach them about our Lord, about His loving salvation, about praying and listening to Him?  I want my grandchildren - oh how I desire for them - to know God above all and that His love is what they need most.  I pray they remember that I tried to teach them and that I have surrendered to Him.

            Despite my shortcomings, failings, weaknesses, fears, doubts, I know there is only one living God and that He is my absolute.  God is my Answer . . . Jesus Christ is my Absolute.  Those are the two sayings I have repeated over and over again throughout my life.  
          God has healed me of much and given me much.  He has been my protector, my provider, my greatest desire, and to Him I owe my life, my love, my obedience, my surrender.  These are the things I pray my grandchildren will remember most. 

            Oh God, I will do as You ask.  I know You will do with these words what You want.  I surrender them and myself to You!

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"The Ten Commandments" is my all-time favorite movie.  

What better movie to reference since I wrote about Moses and me?