Monday, December 12, 2011

Relentless Patience

I just started the story of Moses this morning. God meets Moses through the burning bush, He calls himself "I AM WHO I AM" which is a whole other blog in itself (pretty crazy cool statement, I just love it!). Then I AM tells Moses, He is going to use him to free the Israelites from the oppression of the Egyptians. Moses is like, "Ummm, b-b-b-but God I'm not very good at t-t-t-talking, so you should probably find someone else." At that point, if I was God I would have smacked Moses upside the head. Moses you idiot, I just told you I AM WHO I AM!, isn't that enough for you? But God is far more patient that I am (thank God!). He does reprimand Moses though:

"Then the LORD said to him, "Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?" Exodus 4:11

Even after this Moses still insists God has the wrong guy for the job. The Lord is so patient with him. He even is so gracious as to give Moses his brother Aaron to do the public speaking for him. This shows me two things, God will accomplish His purpose no matter how rebellious His people are and God still uses us even though we don't believe Him like we should.

Think over the story of Moses as much as you can remember. God to did some insanely amazing things through Moses. There were the plagues, escape from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the pillars of smoke and fire, the 10 commandments, the manna and quail, just to name a few. The same Moses screwed up, was stubborn, faithless and rebellious through out the whole journey to the promise land. How is that possible? Why would God use such a messed up guy? Yet He did and still does. It is almost like God prefers to use the weak... (that was kind of sarcastic, we know he does, 1 Cor 1:27)!

All this is very comforting to me as a stubborn woman who wants her own way and doesn't usually learn the first time around. I look at my life and think, wow, God has been very gracious to me. Yet so often choose to wallow in self pity because my life doesn't look the way I thought it would. Then I become even more frustrated with myself because of my lack of trust in God and how I am far more concerned with my own will than His. I seem to never quite get it. I feel like Moses, "but God I can't..." fill in the blank. Yet God is relentlessly patient with me. He is so gracious! He is so good. He will accomplish His purpose through me. Why? Because it is not about me, what I can or can't do. It is about HIM, what He is doing.

1 comment:

  1. Love this...thanks Melissa! Still praying for you guys!

    Love you lots,
    Dawn

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