"... I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Exodus 3:6a
Have you ever been given a job or assignment that felt impossible? When I was in college, my college pastor tasked me with navigating our entire group around New York City for an entire day. I immediately told him, "I can't." I had good reasons. First, I am absolutely horrible with directions. Second, I had never been to New York City before. As a result, I was very unfamiliar with how to navigate through the city. Unfortunately for me, my college pastor saw my reasons as excuses. He did not let me off the hook, so I agreed and set out to navigate our entire group around New York City. To my great surprise, I did it! I was so proud of myself and glad that my college pastor did not accept my excuses. Can you relate? Maybe you were not tasked with navigating through New York City, but we are all given challenging assignments throughout our lives. Sometimes, God calls us to do something that seems difficult or even impossible. When given these challenging assignments and difficulties, we are tempted to make excuses. These excuses are all based on our perceived inadequacies and inabilities. What we fail to realize as we make excuses is that God is always at work, and He will work through our weaknesses in order to accomplish His callings.
When God called Moses to do a very difficult assignment in Exodus 3, Moses needed a reminder of who exactly was calling him to do the said assignment. At that time, Moses was serving as a shepherd, herding sheep, when "an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush" (verse 2). Suddenly, Moses heard the voice of God calling out to him, saying, "I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" (verse 6). Even before God gave Moses his assignment, God reminded Moses of who He was. He was the God of His ancestors, whom He had constantly taken care of and provided for. Next, God gave the assignment, "I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers… Now go, for I am sending you to Pharaoh. You must lead my people Israel out of Egypt" (verses 7-10). At God’s call to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, Moses protested, "Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt?" (verse 11). Although many of us may have responded similarly, Moses was asking the wrong question. He was asking, "Who am I?" A better question would have been, "Who are You?” God already made it clear who He was. He was the God who had been taking care of the Israelites and who would continue to take care of His people. He is the God who works through His people to do profound things, and He would work through Moses and his weaknesses.
The apostle Paul, writer of many books of the New Testament, understood that God’s great power is displayed through our weaknesses. He explained in 1 Corinthians 12 that when he begged God to take away one of his weaknesses, God said to Him, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weaknesses” (verse 9). The remarkable truth is that God’s power worked mightily through Paul. God used Paul to be one of the greatest missionaries to ever live and to write many books in the New Testament.
Still today, God’s power is all we need, and it works best in weaknesses. Have you been making excuses to avoid doing something that God has called you to do because of perceived weaknesses? Let go of excuses and trust His power to work in your life through your weaknesses.
Have you been making excuses because of your failures or perceived weaknesses? It’s time to take God’s word seriously, believing that He will work through our weaknesses. Memorize 2nd Corinthians 12:9. Every time you feel as if you are too much of a failure or that your weaknesses are too great, bring this verse to mind. Let it embolden you to step into whatever God is calling you to do, regardless of your weaknesses and failures.
2 Corinthians 12:1-10
1This boasting will do no good, but I must go on. I will reluctantly tell about visions and revelations from the Lord. 2 was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don’t know—only God knows. 3 Yes, only God knows whether I was in my body or outside my body. But I do know 4 that I was caught up to paradise and heard things so astounding that they cannot be expressed in words, things no human is allowed to tell.
5 That experience is worth boasting about, but I’m not going to do it. I will boast only about my weaknesses. 6 If I wanted to boast, I would be no fool in doing so, because I would be telling the truth. But I won’t do it, because I don’t want anyone to give me credit beyond what they can see in my life or hear in my message, 7 even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.
8 Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. 9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 10 That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
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