I Will Be With You
Exodus 3:11,12a So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people
the Israelites out of Egypt. And God said, “I will be with you.”
Moses had been born from a Hebrew family in Egypt, but because of a law that was meant to kill all Hebrew babies he was abandoned. Pharaoh’s daughter found him and raised raised him in the riches and privileges of royalty. After finding out that he was Hebrew, he went to the defence of a Hebrew slave and killed an Egyptian. Because of this he fled the country to the land of Midian. It was there that he started a family and took care of sheep for forty years. It was at the end of the forty years that God appeared to him from within a burning bush. And it was then that God called him to go back to Egypt and Pharaoh to bring the Israelites out. Lastly God added to him, “I will be with you.” But as we see in Ex 4:13 Moses says, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.”
To this most of us would say who would blame him. After all he left Egypt because he feared for his life, and the Hebrews responded to his kindness by telling him, “who made you ruler and judge over us?” So in Moses’ eyes why go back to help someone that doesn’t want your help only to risk your life in doing it? But there was one thing that took care of all of Moses’ arguments and apprehensions, and it was that God said that he would be with him. How can you argue against this? Well, in reality it’s not that hard to do when you keep looking back at your own weakness? This is what Moses did. Moses responds to the Lord by saying, “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.” Now this may seem strange for someone that grew up in the riches of Pharaoh with all the education and blessings of the greatest empire of his day, but in Moses eyes he felt this way. I am sure he was thinking God is asking me to commit suicide. Even if he would do some miracles or magic in the thinking of Pharaoh, what would keep Pharaoh from killing him on the spot? Well, we know God could protect him, but that is easy for us to say. We were not the one that was walking into what he saw as certain death!
Trusting God to have enough faith to do what he asks is not always an easy thing. When Jesus told to lame man to rise up and walk, what did he have to lose? Now Peter was a different story when Jesus asked him to get out of the boat in the middle of a terrible storm on the Sea of Galilee. After no one can walk on water, except maybe Jesus that was walking on it right in front of him!
I would have loved to have seen the faces of the other apostles when Peter lifted his leg over the side of the boat, and then started walking on the water. I’ll bet everyone’s mouth fell open, and pointed to Peter. Peter was doing what was impossible! He was until he took his eyes off of Jesus and started looking at the huge waves crashing towards him. Then suddenly his fear came crashing down on his faith and trust in Jesus like the watery waves before him. In response Jesus simply reached out his hand and rescued him. I had a lady in one of my churches that told me many times that all her life she felt called to be a missionary, but she was too afraid to go to Africa. I tried to help her see that if God calls us to something he will be with us and will provide and take care of us. He will be Emmanuel. (God with us) She would agree and then come and bring this all up in a few months again and again. My heart went out for her, because she felt guilty not only for not becoming a missionary, but not having enough faith to trust him to do it.
How did it end for her you might ask? Well, I helped her to seek God for the assurance that he was really wanting her to go to Africa. A couple of days later she approached me with a big smile on her face, and said that God had told her that he never wanted her to go to Africa. He just wanted her to trust him. Undermining our trust in God is Satan’s tap root for all his trials and temptations that he and the hordes of hell bring on us. If they can make us question God’s integrity or word we will never have faith or even a desire to do small things he asks of us let alone the impossible.
Maybe Moses did stammer and stutter, but God used him to set free probably over a million people and lead them not only to their Promised Land, but to know the one true living Almighty God! God is not a respecter of people. If he did it through Moses, he can do it through anyone even you and me. God may not be asking you to do anything right now, but you may feel you are being asked to walk on water. Life is a struggle from the struggle of our birth to the struggle of our death and everything in between we struggle. You don’t have to go through any of it on your own. Jesus wants to go through it with you! He will lift you up, fill the valleys and level the mountains. All you have to do is ask him for his help! We have not because we ask not! (James 4:2)
When we ask Jesus to forgive us of our sins and to come into our heart he does and so much more! Each and every day he will be there for us to help us in all that we need. It’s a matter of practicing his presence so to speak. He is there, and all we need to do is remember it and act accordingly. I John 4:4 tells us that, “Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world,” and Romans 8:31 tells us that, “If God is for us who can be against us.”
Prayer: Thank you Jesus for wanting to help us walk on the waters that come in our life. Please help us to keep looking into your eyes to see your strength and love for us. We ask this in your holy name.
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