The past few days of silence from blogs have meant that I’ve been keeping busy! While I’ve still had plenty of time to read and fellowship, I have also been busy with errands, church activities, meetings, and typing of the Katio translation project. I wanted to share something with you from the Word that I read yesterday.
Moses was in for quite a bunch of surprises when God spoke to him out of the burning bush. Looking at the set of miraculous things God showed him in just a few minutes, you would think that he would have confidently marched back to Egypt and told Pharaoh what God had said. Yet it’s not that simple.
In Exodus 4, we read about how God told Moses to throw his staff on the ground. I imagine he probably laughed at first – but apparently he stopped laughing when it became a snake and he tried to get away from it. God interrupted his grand escape by telling him to pick the snake up! It was easy enough to throw a staff on the ground, but to pick up a dangerous serpent was a different story.
I’ve never liked snakes. My family lived in the country when I was young and they always startled me. I rarely had bad dreams when I was a kid but I remember running to my parents’ bedroom after I dreamed my room was being invaded by white snakes. Before I took a trip to the Peruvian Amazon when I was 17, I was determined that I would conquer my fear of snakes (you never know what you might encounter!). I did this by looking at pictures of Amazonian serpents – for quite awhile. I eventually came to the point where the pictures didn’t bother me. Sure enough, when I had the opportunity at a zoo in Iquitos to hold a big snake, I did it!
(On the Amazon riverboat in 2005…)
Sometimes the things God instructs us to do turn out like we least expect. We all desire to be used by God, and generally we’re willing to “throw the staff” – take the first step of obedience. The real question is: When it gets hard or seems dangerous, will I run – or face the fear? God wanted to use that snake to demonstrate His miraculous power, both to Moses and to Pharaoh. What if he would have run and let the snake escape? He would have missed the opportunity to demonstrate God’s power to Pharaoh – and he would have been without his staff, a tool that God used to work many more miracles for the deliverance of the people of Israel.
Don’t run. Face the situation and trust that God will work it out for His glory.