Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” Exodus 3:10
Now you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth. And I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you shall do. So he shall be your spokesman to the people. And he himself shall be as a mouth for you, and you shall be to him as God. And you shall take this rod in your hand, with which you shall do the signs.” Exodus 3:15-17
Moses was a shepherd for his father-in-law for forty years and he was content with that role. However, God was about to close that chapter on his life and move him into a new dimension. God called Moses to be Israel’s deliverer, but Moses was reluctant and did not see himself capable of doing it.
Moses questioned God and wondered why Pharaoh would take his demand seriously. The Lord showed Moses that He was with him by turning Moses’ rod into a snake, and then He had Moses catch it by its tail to become a rod again. Then God allowed Moses’ hand become leprous and then He restored back to normal. A snake and a leprous hand would have been frightening to anyone, yet, Moses was still reluctant because he had a stutter. God solved his problem by picking Aaron, his brother, to be his spokesperson.
Sometimes the Lord has to take drastic measures to help us believe that our season has changed and that we need to embrace our new identity. We don’t like it when life situations seem uncertain and out of our control. We like to be comfortable and certain, but it is in these new dimensions that we become more intimate with God and less religious. We have no other option except to seek His face and to depend on His mighty hand to walk with us in those unknown situations.
Moses’ new identity as the deliverer of Israel caused him to seek God and to get to know Him. When had the simple job of shepherding his father-in-law’s sheep, he could operate on cruise control, but he could do that no longer. He had to depend on the Lord because the situations he was going to encounter were going to be difficult, uncertain, and unique.
We also like our predictable life where we have a level of control and familiarity with our surroundings, but when God wants to give us a new identity everything changes. We used to easily prescribe scriptures to others and think that it will fix people’s problems if they took it once a day, but now we don’t want others’ pre-packaged prescription. We need God in a level that we cannot even articulate. Nowadays. we seek His presence at a deeper level to calm our nerves rather than just singing some good worship songs to feel good. We are in a place that we desperately need His insight in this new identity that we just stepped in.
God said to Moses that he was going to be like God to Aaron. Moses had a temporary identity to be as god for Aaron. This was a temporary assignment in order for Aaron to be the mouthpiece for Moses. Aaron was supposed to only speak what Moses instructed him and not add his own thoughts and opinions when he spoke to Pharaoh. Moses understood this temporary identity, and it did not cause him to think that he was more important than Aaron. Neither did he think that Aaron was going to remain in that role for the rest of his life.
In the last forty years of his life, Moses was not only Israel’s deliverer, but God also imparted the law and the Ten Commandments, and Moses is known as the Lawgiver. The Lord has different seasons with different identities for us as well, and when He taps us on the shoulder, it is time for us to let go of the past identities and step into the new role that He has given us.
