God With Us

January 30

Exodus 3-4

Psalm 17:14-15

Proverbs 3:27-28

Matthew 20

God With Us

“And God said, ‘I will be with you.’  God said to Moses, ‘I Am Who I Am.’ This is what you are to say to the Israelites; ‘I Am has sent me to you.’ God also said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites, The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.  This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.”  Exodus 3:12, 14-15 NIV

Whatever God calls us to do, we can know that He will be with us.  The task before Moses, seemed impossible.  It must have seemed crazy.  He had fled Egypt because he murdered an Egyptian and Pharaoh was trying to kill him.  Now God was asking him to go to Pharaoh and ask him to let the Israelites go.  And just as crazy was the idea that the Israelites would follow him.  He was born as a Hebrew boy but had been raised in the palace by Pharaoh’s daughter.  Why would the Israelites trust him?  We look at the exchange between God and Moses now and wonder how Moses could question God.  But I dare say, most of us would have had the exact same reaction.  If truth be told, we often have that exact same reaction when God asks us to do something that we don’t understand.  We question God and tell Him that we can’t possibly do what He is asking us to do.  We tell Him that surely someone else can do it; surely there is someone better suited to the task. 

God will never ask us to do something that He does not fully equip us to do.  God does not call the equipped.  He does not look at all the people in the world and decide who is best equipped to do His task.  He equips the called.   He decides who He wants to use and then He equips them.  And He goes even further.  He does not prepare us, give us a good pep talk, and send us out to do the task He has assigned to us.  He prepares us spiritually, mentally, physically, and emotionally and then He goes with us.  He is before us leading the way, beside us holding our right hand, and behind us protecting us.  Whatever task He calls us to, He gives us everything we need to accomplish that task.  He is God with us.