...Oh Lord, anyone but me!...

“10 But Moses said to the Lord, ‘O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.’ 11 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.’ 13 But he said, ‘O my Lord, please send someone else.’ 14 Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, ‘What of your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he can speak fluently; even now he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you his heart will be glad. 15 You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do. 16 He indeed shall speak for you to the people; he shall serve as a mouth for you, and you shall serve as God for him. 17 Take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs.’

18 Moses went back to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, ‘Please let me go back to my kindred in Egypt and see whether they are still living.’ And Jethro said to Moses, ‘Go in peace’” Exodus 4:10-18.

These verses contain two of Moses' protests (vv. 10 and 13). Moses' first protest (4:10) emphasizes his need for God’s help. The second (4:13), however, represents a blatant attempt to be excused from the assignment itself and draws God's immediate anger (4:14–17), and later is most likely part of God's continuing anger towards Moses’ resistance to carry out God's instructions (4:24–26).

But when Moses complained to God that “he has never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now…but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue,” I suspect that he was not speaking literally but figuratively, responding to a great assignment with the proper sort of exaggerated humility and self-effacement expected and valued in his culture. There is no evidence anywhere in the Bible that Moses ever had any lack of skill in speech, public or private — and overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I think Moses was daunted and nervous by the assignment God gave him,

and who among us, after all, would not also have been nervous and doubtful of this huge, super-human task God was laying on the shoulders of Moses!? 

Are we not all easily convinced, at times, as our inability to follow Christ?

Or perhaps more common, we step side from following Christ for a spell because of the burdens involved in remaining faithful! We don’t whine to God about our lack of skills, but instead we talk ourselves into “taking a vacation from following Christ.” We go on a kind of “Spring Break” from the Lord. I know this angers God, as it should, and so we ought to see ourselves in the life of Moses. We are alike when we easily talk ourselves into hiding God in a box, and we head out alone without Him!

Take time today in prayer and don’t be too critical of Moses, for if truth be told, we are just like Moses. 

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.