Moses' Story: When You Feel Inadequate for God’s Calling

“But Moses said, ‘O Lord, please send someone else to do it.” —EXODUS 4:13

Many people are slow, if almost completely reticent to get involved in serving God. They think themselves to be inadequate, or they won’t be believed, and so are glad others are ‘on the job’ for God.  

One of the things I love about Scripture is that it always tells the truth about its heroes. Moses’ thinking at the burning bush when God instructed him to go back to Egypt to free his people was, “But not me. It can’t be me.” He said to God, “O 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.” But Moses said, ‘O Lord, please send someone else to do it” (Exodus 4:10-13).

At eighty years old, it is understandable why Moses didn’t feel adequate. He thought himself ignorant of what to tell his people, impotent because they might not believe him, incompetent because he didn’t have the right qualifications, and irrelevant to God’s plan. “Send someone else,” he said, and he really did not want to go. There was a time, however, when he did; forty years earlier, drawing on his own strength to help his people, he killed an Egyptian and was forced to flee Egypt.

With every passing year, Moses would have become more drained of his own significance and abilities, but the Lord’s answer to Moses was, “I will be with you.” God’s response was not to transform Moses into suddenly being adequate for the task, but God was promising His own adequacy. It would be God through Moses who would free his people. If the Israelites didn’t believe Moses, the power of God would be revealed in the impotence of Moses, and God would do through him what is humanly impossible.

In whatever God has called us to do, there are no barriers to the sufficiency of God. When we realize we can’t but God can, our strength is going to be in God’s divine adequacy played out through human inadequacy, His divine sufficiency played out through human insufficiency and divine truth played out through human frailty. The origin of our activity will be God, Himself, and that is what makes the Christian life dynamic, effective and fruitful.

Dear Lord, I ask that you rid me of any hesitancy to be ‘on the job’ for You. Help me to totally trust in your sufficiency and depend upon You. Thank You, Lord.

Has fear of my own inadequacies prevented me from stepping out in faith for God?