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Your Excuse to Not do God's Will

Do you ever build mountains out of molehills, imaging things that you think will happen that never happen? It is a type of protection mechanism that we use to guard against failure. We hate to fail, don't we? Yes, we do. 

Imagine yourself a stutterer who has lived in the desert for 40 years talking with sheep and desert-dwellers. Your social skills may have diminished over the years of isolation. Then, out of the blue, you have an encounter with God who wants to send you on an impossible mission. He is talking to you from a burning bush and wants to use you to rescue people who have been slaves for 400 years. Does that sound the least bit plausible to you?


From our perspective, it might be easy to side with Moses as he comes up with several good excuses as to why this thing ain't a-gonna work out too well. However, we have read this account so many times that we know what will happen, and sometimes we don't side with Moses as being quite astute in his argument. We think, "Moses, PLEASE. Don't you know who you are talking to?" "Don't you know that everything is going to work out just fine?"


If you place yourself in his sandals, you will realize that what God was asking Moses to do was indeed impossible. At eighty years old most people have already retired. They aren't looking for adventure in the desert with a million cranky slaves. 


Moses was more vigorous than many his age, but he was a shepherd for Pete's sake. He had been out of the loop for forty years. When he left Egypt, he was on the lamb. Hed killed a guy. He was a fugitive. Why stir that pot of worms... or is it a can of worms? Is it any wonder that Moses did his best to make God understand his misgivings? 


He was no different than most today who sing the old hymn this way, "Lord send him anywhere. Only go with him; Lay any burden on him, Only sustain him. Sever any tie, save the tie that binds him to thy heart-- Lord Jesus, my King, He consecrates his lie Lord to thee. 


How could I leave my kids? My Church, my job? I want to be around to influence my grandkids. I want to be a part of my married children's lives. Suppose I leave my employment. How on earth will we survive. I never was very good at public speaking. I get nervous in front of crowds. I could never learn a foreign language. I'll lose my seniority. I'm not too fond of South América. I'm not too fond of the heat. I don't like cockroaches. I can't move there because it is too dangerous. I could never adapt to a foreign culture. Don't they have giant snakes? The spiders are huge. I could never live in the jungle. 


These are all Mountain out of molehill problems that will help you vier away from the direction God wants you to take. Moses had a reason to be scared, but in the end, he went and did what God commanded him to do. What's your excuse?

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