Bible Stories for the Young
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God had just given Moses a big job — go back to Egypt and get God’s children out of there!
This sounds like happy news, doesn’t it? Yay! God’s children are going to be freed. But Moses wasn’t exactly jumping up and down with happy feelings. God was basically saying He needed a delivery man — someone to deliver the people out of slavery. But Moses wasn’t sure he wanted to be a delivery man.
You know what a delivery man is, right? If you want a package to get delivered from one place to another place, you need a postman, a delivery man. The delivery man takes the special package from one place and delivers it to another place.
As we learn about Moses, watch how his job doesn’t just stop at getting God’s Family out of Egypt. Moses is going to have to deliver God’s Family all the way to the “front door” of the Promised Land.
They wouldn’t just be “saved” from their hard life of slavery, but they would be delivered all the way to the Promise (the milk and honey!). Delivered from slavery to freedom. Delivered from a problem to a solution. That’s what a good leader does.
Moses had tried to help his Israelite brothers before and that had almost gotten him killed! So, Moses wasn’t sure he wanted to help. He’d already blown it once.
“God, who am I, that I could ever be good enough to be allowed to talk to the king of Egypt for You or lead all Your people? I am just little stuff.”
“I’ll be with you,” God answered.
That should have been all Moses needed to hear. It didn’t matter what had happened forty years before. Moses just needed to humbly obey God today. But he still wasn’t sure. “If I go to the people and say, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers has sent me,’ then what if they ask me Your Name, what am I supposed to say?”
(Did you know that at this point, God had never told the people His name? But now, He’s going to tell them.)
“I AM who I Am,” answered God. “Tell them ‘YaHWeH, I AM, has sent me to you.’”
God continued to tell Moses everything that he should say and do, and everything that would happen!
“But what if the people don’t b-b-believe me?” Moses still worried.
God said, “Throw that walking stick in your hand down to the ground.”
Moses threw the stick down, and it turned into a s-s-s-slithering snake! Aaaah! Moses ran from the snake!
“Now reach out and grab that snake by the tail,” God told Moses. So, Moses reached out and caught the s-s-s-slithering snake by the tail, and it turned back into a walking stick.
God gave Moses two more signs like this. Moses could use these signs to prove to Pharaoh that he was sent by God and Pharaoh should listen to God. But, it didn’t make Moses feel better. He really just didn’t feel like being the one to deliver all those people.
“B-b-b-ut God, I’ve never been good at talking. I’m slow when I talk and hard to understand — my whole life — and I haven’t gotten any b-b-better since You started talking to me.”
“Didn’t I make your mouth?” God answered. “Who decides if someone can speak or hear or see? Don’t I, the Lord, decide that?! Now go, go, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what to say.”
Moses was getting desperate now. He tried one last time to try to convince God that he was the wrong guy to send. “Lord, please find someone else, anyone else, but not me!”
God had had quite enough of this conversation and was getting a bit angry at Moses.
Finally, God just said, “Ok. Your brother Aaron can speak well, so he can speak for you. But you take that walking stick with you and go do the signs I showed you.”
So at last, Moses took his walking stick, and went.
(Shew! No one — you, me, Moses — no one should make it so hard on God to get a job done when He asks us to do something! He should’ve just said, “Yes, Sir!”)
