January 20-22, 2013 Not me, Lord!

Moses said to the Lord, “Oh 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 man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.” Exodus 4: 10-12

     The second book of the Bible, Exodus, begins with Moses, a man who no less than 5 times questions God about sending him to be the one who leads God’s people out of slavery in Egypt.  Repeatedly, Moses says things like, “Who am I, that I should go…” and “What if they do not believe me or listen to me…” and finally just plain, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.” My fifth grader and his Christian friends have been dealing with something similar in their school lately. During Sunday school this week, his teacher shared with me that the kids in her class, including my son, were wondering how to respond to friends who don’t believe, worrying about how they will react and what they should say to them when their non-believing friends express their thoughts that God is not real or that they do not believe in Him.  It’s sad to think that they have to deal with this so young, but often they are better equipped to handle it than adults are, adults who have had many more years to mess up and recognize how inadequate we are.  Apparently, my son finds it fairly simple. He just tells his friends that he believes God is real, and that’s that.  If we all could be so bold without getting into sermons or becoming too preachy where we turn others off or push them further away from God.  In effect it’s saying, “This is what I believe. I’d love to talk to you about it if you want, but if you don’t, I’m still going to believe. And no matter what you believe, you’re still my friend.” That’s my favorite part. At his age, none of this actually seems to affect their friendships. There’s only a small group of children on the base (around 200 within the K-6^th grade elementary school), so they are limited with finding new friends if they have a falling out with the old ones.  In some ways, this is a good thing because it teaches them how to love unconditionally. Even if their friends do not go to church or are from a very different type of family or cultural background, it doesn’t matter. They will not shun them or form the same type of cliques and social groupings you’ll find at most bigger schools because there’s simply not enough children to do so.  They learn how to be friends and accept all types of people, while continuing to keep their own beliefs and cultural backgrounds in tack, for the most part. It’s quite amazing. They are a product of their environments, and they have adapted very well. This is a great example of how our attitudes toward God should be, adapting to what He needs us to adapt to at any given time. We all need to be prepared to be used by God in one way or another, to find ways to accept the place He has put us and allow Him to work through it instead of complaining that it’s not what we wanted or hoped it would be.  In fact, the more you resist being used by God, often the greater he will choose to use you, like Moses.  He didn’t want to go around saving his people from the Egyptians, but he feared God more, so he did.  One thing my son’s teacher told her students yesterday is to set a good example, to show God’s love through their actions, and that’s how they will attract their unbelieving friends to God. I am a big advocate of this. More often for me, it’s not what you say, but how you conduct yourself that matters.  If you are not happy in your current situation and complain about it, then that’s what others will see, an unhappy, negative Christian. Moses was very honest about his deficiencies and faults and even His fear in doing God’s bidding, but he revealed his true connection to God, his fear and reverence for him by doing what God asked of Him and allowing God to use him and his brother through all sorts of signs and miracles to set God’s chosen people free from slavery in Egypt.  It couldn’t have been easy, but He accepted what God had chosen for Him to do, and He moved forward to do it. I do not claim to know anymore than anyone else about God. Sometimes I worry that I have even written something that’s not quite right in my ramblings about the Bible because that’s what they are, my ramblings, my simple understanding of a very complex and mighty God and the world and people He’s created to live in it, but I have to trust that if God wants to use me, speak through me, than He will do so, even if I don’t realize He’s doing it, even when I don’t feel equipped to do it.  He will shape the thoughts and words as I type them. He will take the things I have wrong and cause those reading them to forget those parts and focus only on the truths He wants to impart to His children at that moment. He is greater than me. He is the “I Am,” and He knows exactly the right thing to say and do at all times. He created heaven and earth and all the beings in it, so how could I ever doubt that He can do what He needs to do through me and the others He made.  He can and He will, no matter who you are or what you believe about Him or yourself.  The absolute best part of all of this is that once you turn your focus to God and allow Him to use you, all the other blessings will follow, and those things that were hard to deal with before suddenly become easier because you have changed your focus and have put God in charge of it all, so before you say, “Not me, Lord” consider what you are really saying no to.