Send Someone Else

But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.” Exodus 4:13

I’ve had a few opportunities presented to me lately where it appeared that I was the most obvious person to do the job. I’ve prayed about them, and it seems they’ve been the right thing to do – that they’re God’s will. These weren’t opportunities I was seeking out and in one specific case, it’s something I don’t want to do. I’ve taken on a couple of these tasks and frankly, I’ve been dragging my feet on one of them. The ones that I’ve done have been hard but rewarding work. The one I’ve been putting off promises to be disruptive to my life. I’ve found myself saying – This can’t be my responsibility God. Send someone else. It’s become pretty obvious to me though that I need to at least try to do it. Though I know it may be uncomfortable, I’ve learned by now that running from God’s will, so that I may seek my own, has far worse consequences.

Moses engaged in a battle of wills with God in today’s passage. In the story, God commanded Moses to return to Egypt to free his people from slavery. Moses had several excuses. I’m nobody. They won’t believe you sent me. I’m not good enough. God had answers for all of Moses’ objections and so finally, Moses came out and said what he really meant. I don’t want to go. Send someone else. Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses (Exodus 4:14). Now Moses found himself in a worse spot than if he’d just have listened. In trying to protect his comfortable life, Moses place himself in direct opposition to God. I refuse to do your will. I’m going my own way.

Perhaps without realizing it, a lot of us live here. God has put situations in our lives where we’re supposed to do something, to love someone, or to be of service. We know that Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:39), yet we simply don’t want to do these things. To get involved is to get messy. We like our comfortable lives, and we’d rather not disrupt them. We’re possessive of our time, our money, and our stuff, and we’re afraid that being obedient to God means that we’ll have to make sacrifices.

The problem for me, is that my way is disaster. When I say no to God and go my own way, he lets me. In doing so, I create my own misery. Here’s the absurd thing – Following God has never made me miserable. Still, I stubbornly cling to my way. I like my new life though and so today, and every day, I must be willing to do what God asks of me – even if it means doing that one thing that I’ve been avoiding.