Photo: Bokeh / Tomedia. Child Riding Bicycle on Beach.
The question that caught me during this sermon was the one Moses asks when God tells him to go to Pharaoh.
Who am I to do that?
Yeah. Familiar.
I ask some version of that about a lot of things. Work I know how to do. Ideas I have spent ages thinking about. Things other people can see I am capable of while I am still privately trying to work out why they have that impression.
My notes on Exodus 3 turn into a fairly direct conversation with myself. I had been doing this again, doubting the things I believed God had given me to use.
And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? And he said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.
God answers with his presence
Moses is being asked to return to Egypt and confront Pharaoh. This is a serious assignment, with a serious history behind it. He isn’t being silly for recognising the scale of what is being asked.
God’s answer to his question is that he will be with him.
I find that interesting because Moses’ attention is on whether Moses is enough. The reassurance is about who will go with him.
Then the objections continue into Exodus 4. What if people don’t believe him? What about the way he speaks? Eventually he asks God to send someone else.
Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.
I can follow the progression. There is asking because you need help, and there is keeping the discussion going because you would quite like the task to disappear. Sometimes I am less sure than I would like about which one I am doing.
What is already in my hand?
God asks Moses what he is holding. A staff. Something already part of his ordinary life becomes part of the signs God gives him.
The sermon went into an extended stick analogy at this point. My notes suggest it lost me somewhere along the way. But the question stayed.
What do I already have that I keep dismissing?
For me, one recurring idea was the Bible app. I wanted a map and a timeline that made it easier to understand where events happened and how they related to each other. I kept writing about it at church. Sometimes in enough technical detail that I had plainly wandered away from the sermon.
I know how to build software. I had an idea of how it could help. Still, I kept finding myself back at the question of whether I was the person to do it.
That doesn’t mean every idea I have is a divine instruction. I need to think, pray, test things and listen to other people. But endless self-doubt isn’t doing those jobs either. It can keep me occupied without bringing me any closer to a decision.
My history doesn’t have to make every decision
There is another thread in these notes about what I have come through. Things I have run from, things I have struggled with, and the temptation to keep using those experiences as my explanation for why I can’t move forward.
I believe God has helped me through a great deal. It would be strange to acknowledge that and then insist that the earlier version of me gets the final say on everything I attempt.
I don’t need to claim I have suddenly become fearless. I can be honest about needing help and still take a manageable step.
With the app idea, that means deciding what one useful part would look like and giving it some actual time. A map with a small set of carefully checked events would tell me more than another month of wondering whether I could ever build the whole thing. I can start there, ask for help where I need it, and learn from what happens.