Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Uncharted Waters

     I’ve finally made up my mind to do this blog thing.  I’ve toyed with the idea numerous times, only to dismiss it with excuses like, “I’m too busy.”  Or “No one will want to read about my life.” Or “I don’t know how to set it up.”  It just got me thinking about how new things are so scary sometimes, and how most of us fight change.  This is nothing new.  I can think of two bible characters from the Old Testament with very different reactions.  One was afraid of the unknown and made many excuses to get out of doing his duty, the other embraced the change and trusted God.
     When the Lord thought it was time to help the Israelites leave Egypt, he already had someone in mind to help them.  So he went to Moses and told him so, but this is what Moses had to say:
 “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
     And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”  Immediately he wants to reason with God and let Him know that He’s picked the wrong man for the job.
     This wasn’t the first time Moses did this either.  There were several times when Moses said, “But God…”  and God told him what to say to the people.  Then Moses replies with his final excuse…
      “Moses said to the LORD, “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.”
      But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”
Then the LORD’s anger burned against Moses and he said, “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. But take this staff in your hand so you can perform the signs with it.”
     What baffles me is that Moses continued to doubt after God assured him that he would not fail.  Doesn’t He promise us good when we go about doing good for Him.  So why do we doubt?  I love to write, especially about God and what He shows me in my life, so why would He allow me to fail?  The other bible character I was thinking of this morning was Abraham.  God also asked him to obey and leave everything he’d ever known and go to a strange land.
     The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
“I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”
     So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
     It doesn’t say anything about Abraham making excuses about why he couldn’t go, it says he WENT!  So today, I have decided that I will not fear the unknown.  I’m going to go into this with an attitude of learning.  I think that pride was stopping me mostly because I didn’t want to have a blog that wasn’t good enough.  That’s not what this is about; this is about writing and sharing what I learn about God and life.  I never claimed to be a technological genius or an excellent writer, but I am pretty good at talking.

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