Authentic Prayer from James MacDonaldSample

Moses’ Vertical Call

When I hear the name Moses, I picture a giant in faith with a long grey beard and weary eyes as he stands on a mountain with arms outstretched. I revere that vision of Moses, but I resonate more deeply with the Moses of early Exodus. Rash and aggressive, younger Moses tried to accomplish his calling in the flesh, ending quickly with a corpse buried in the sand. Forty years later God gave Moses a second chance but he seemed stuck on lesson one: “I can’t.”

In Exodus 3, God appeared to Moses “in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush” (v.2) that burned but was not consumed. In response to God’s call, Moses refused to be God’s messenger of deliverance, wallowing in his own inadequacy. I’ve done that too; have you?

Have you struggled to embrace what God wanted you to do and for a time refused to do it? I spent the first two years of college refusing to be a pastor, in fear I would lack the patience and the perseverance with people. I also resisted God about starting a church from scratch, as I feared I would end up preaching to twelve people around a card table. I understand Moses’ initial refusal to do a big job. But God pressed in as He does with all of us. In the end God’s greatest provision for Moses’ or my or your sense of inadequacy is simply and profoundly His presence with us. The answer to Moses’ persistent pattern of “I can’t” was not “Yes, you can, Moses” but “I can, I will, I AM.”

Prayer: Father, I confess that my first instinct is to refuse Your call and even try to run away. I realize that I’m stuck sometimes in fearful, horizontal thinking and forget that You invite me to look at everything from Your vertical point of view. Help me remember that Your call always comes with whatever else I need to do and be what You ask of me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.