Have you ever had someone who believed in you… someone who saw the best about you and pulled it out of you? Someone who believed in you at a time you couldn’t believe for yourself?
We all need people like that in our lives, don’t we?
And we see this beautiful story line unfold in the life of Moses.
When God originally calls him to lead His people, the Israelites, out of Egypt, Moses is reluctant.
And the one excuse he gives God is that he’s not good with words. In Exodus 4:10 he says this, “O Lord, I’m not very good with words. I never have been, and I’m not now. even though You have spoken to me. I get tongue tied and my words gets tangled.”
Moses knew his weaknesses and he was very familiar with all he lacked.
Knowing that the call of God on his life would require the impossible assignment of public speaking, he shrunk from the task, giving a total of 5 doubt-filled excuses why he certainly wasn’t the right man for the task.
Moses was grasping at straws in this fourth attempt to be “taken off the hook”, but God, in His kindness and His great love and mercy, disallows Moses to escape that easy. Deficiency is never a sufficient excuse for usefulness in the Kingdom of God! “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” (1 Cor 1:27)
God saw Moses’ ability long before Moses did.
He saw Moses as a faithful vessel, emptied for the pouring in.
He saw Moses as a friend, one He wanted to be with. (Ex 3:12)
He saw Moses as strong and steadfast.
And all the time Moses remained humble yet filled with apprehension.
In the sovereignty of the Lord, and because He serves as both Comforter and Captain, He supplies Moses with, Aaron, his brother who WAS a good speaker. The new command was, “Talk to him (Aaron), and put the words in his mouth. I will be with you both as you speak, and I will instruct you both in what to do.” (Ex 4:15)
Now take a look at Acts 7. When Stephen is recalling Moses and telling of his nature and character to the council he stood before, he says this about our faithful hero, “… Moses was born - a beautiful child in God’s eyes…. Moses was ‘taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in both speech and action.” (7:21-22)
I love this so much!
The very thing Moses viewed as a defect became the very thing future generations saw as his remarkable strength. So much so that some greats, like Stephen, were still talking about these perceived qualities years later.
It would become his legacy.
Because sometimes we miss it altogether.
Sometimes the very thing we see as lack, God is using for leverage in Kingdom Work.
And just maybe it takes others believing about us what we cannot even see in ourselves in order to propel us into the work that might remain undone if we were to say no.
We see it, again, in the life of Jacob who upon his dying bed is speaking a blessing over each of his twelve sons. When he comes to Jacob, the one who had been abandoned by his brothers, sold to slaves, and left to die alone without his family, Jacob says this of him, “Archers attacked him savagely; they shot at him and harassed him. But his bow remained taut, and his arms were strengthened by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, by the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel.” (Gen 49:23-24)
What Jacob says of him is both history and prophesy. It’s what he has been and who he will be.
And we all need those in our lives who, knowing full well that what WAS is overshadowed by what CAN BE when Christ is in it.
“He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” (1 Thess 5:24)
So speak life today over other people.
Speak life and love.
Use your words to pull out the very best in other people.
You have NO idea how God will use those words to change the entire course of history!
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