Who Am I?
I’ve been telling the story on and off since college, I think.
That’s when I decided Exodus was going to be my very favorite book.
I think maybe I’ve even told it here before. But today feels like a day to tell it again.
It’s not really my story, you know. The story belongs to Moses. And then again, it is exactly my story most days. I imagine it’s often exactly yours, too.
It’s Your Year
Exodus 12 opens with a declaration that on its face doesn’t seem highly dramatic.
It is two verses long.
One sentence.
Twenty-five words.
That’s it, and really, not much is said about it at all.
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.” (Exodus 12:1-2, NIV)
Doesn’t sound too earth-shattering.
But at the right time I read them, these two little verses knocked me right off my chair. As a university student, I was in the middle of a fierce battle, much like we often face. The enemy was attacking, accusing me with old, settled, forgiven and overcome sin. It should no longer have been an issue. Yet it was still coming up and taking my tired little brain for quite a spin.
I was sad. I was frustrated. I was exhausted. The last thing I wanted was another challenge or a rebuke.
As I sat down at my cluttered desk in my dorm room, I laid my head on my open Bible. With tears forming in my eyes, I pleaded with God to be gentle with me.
I had been studying Exodus for months. And so far, God had been challenging my socks off with each new passage, each new day.
Sin was constantly being exposed in my life.
I was continually being convicted.
And my thinking was endlessly being challenged to a level I wasn’t sure I could cope with. I found myself to be so like the Israelites.
I fought God. I accused Him of dragging me to the desert to die. I made life hard for those who were like Moses in my life. And God patiently, but pointedly, showed me this day after day after day.
So in my exhaustion that morning, I begged God to just encourage me.
“Don’t convict me. Don’t challenge me. Don’t teach me,” I whimpered. “Just encourage me.”
All I wanted was to feel good for five minutes. Couldn’t I just have that?
I lifted my weary head and braced myself for the day’s thrashing. I looked at the page and immediately let out a howl. I threw back my head, thrust my arms into the air and laughed out loud!
You see, as God was telling the Israelites that it was the first month of their year, He was also telling me that it was my new year! It was my new beginning! God had delivered me from sin, had forgiven me, and therefore it was my year.
I realized at that moment that I couldn’t go back, even if I wanted to.
You see, Satan was wrong. We cannot go back in time. I cannot go back to a time before I was forgiven. And at a time when I needed desperately to be reminded of the permanence of my new life in Him, God so gently reminded me of the new year, my year, which was mine because of Jesus’ finished work on the cross. In His precious timing, He gave me the encouragement I begged for and the assurance I ached for that I was already forgiven and freed from the sin that Satan had tried to bring back to harass me.
God will tell us what we need to hear, when we need to hear it. Twenty years later I still cling to the promise He gave me that unmatched morning of my new year.
The one that starts each new day.
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Out of Egypt: God Is in the Details
“But take this staff in your hand so you can perform miraculous signs with it.” (Exodus 4:17)
One more look at Exodus for now, and very briefly at that…
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Now that Moses has at last relented, he prepares to meet his brother Aaron and go back to Egypt. Before his amazing encounter with God at the bush is over, however, God tells him one more thing.
But take this staff in your hand so you can perform miraculous signs with it.
Moses, just one more thing before you go. Don’t forget your staff.
Don’t forget your staff. You’ll need it.
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Think God is all big-picture? That He’s not in the details?
Think again.
Yes, God is big-picture.
He gets what’s important and doesn’t want us to sweat the small stuff. Not to worry.
He wants us to see the vision, get the wider view.
But He’s also all about the details. The finer points. The little things that matter.
He takes interest in the little things we might think He just overlooks. He doesn’t overlook our little things. He cares deeply about them.
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He’s big-picture, sure.
But oh, the little details matter to Him.
Because we matter to Him.
Don’t forget your staff.
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Out of Egypt: Send Someone Else
But Moses said, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.” (Exodus 4:13)
Moses is still rearing up, but his excuses get weaker by the word. He’s just told God that he doesn’t speak well, and so he should not be the one to go. God answers with a question.
I hate that.
Just who do you think gave man his mouth?
At least God does answer His own questions, though.
Is it not I, the Lord? Now GO; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.
It is God who gave us what we have in the first place, and He knows what we need for which tasks. He does not give us responsibilities He has not equipped us to carry out.
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Moses is desperate. He has no other good lines to use.
He throws in his final, all-or-nothing punch: Just send somebody else.
What? Did he actually say that straight out?
The Word says that at this point God’s anger burned against Moses. While we ask our questions, make our excuses, God seems to still bring us along, working with us, patiently answering all our fears. He has it all worked out, and there is nothing to be found in our “rational” objections that can stump God.
But flat out refuse to obey or insist that He do things our way instead of His? I think we’ll see His anger burn.
I don’t like that. I don’t want to be there.
He’ll answer our questions, work through it with us.
But when the time comes, He will just say Now GO.
GO.
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Despite Moses’ rebellion, God has it all figured out. He did all along.
Moses’ brother, Aaron, may go along and speak for him. I knew all along that you would act like this, and I planned for this. Aaron is already on his way to meet you.
Here’s how it’s going to work: Moses will speak to Aaron and put words in his mouth. God will help and teach both of them. Aaron will speak to the people for Moses as if it were Moses’ own mouth and as if Moses were as God to Aaron.
If Moses would have stopped panicking and objecting long enough to hear God out, he would have found that all his fears were already covered in God’s planning and foresight.
I have to keep this in mind as the Lord leads in various directions. If I will take the time to be quiet and really hear what He wants to do, I’ll find that He already has it covered, already has me covered.
There is no reason to be afraid to move out in faith.
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Paul asks the Romans, and us,
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?”
God asks Moses the same question, essentially.
How are My people going to be released without someone going to speak to Pharaoh?
I picked you. I gave you Aaron.
I’m sending you, not someone else.
You need to go.
Now.
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Time’s a wasting. There are Israelites to rescue. Now GO.
Time’s a wasting. There are people who need to hear. Now GO.
I can say “Just send someone else.”
Or I can just GO.
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Out of Egypt: Miracle! Quick, Run!
Then the LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied. The LORD said, “Throw it on the ground.” Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. (Exodus 4:2-3)
After God establishes who Moses is (the guy who’s with the One Who is with him) and Who God is (I AM WHO I AM), God lays out with great certainty the fact that the Israelites will believe Moses and that, ultimately, the Egyptians will release them and even wish them well on their way out. You can read the rest of chapter 3 for this.
God is certain. Moses is not. He is still unsure, still pretty wobbly on all this, and God patiently works to bring him around . . .
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My confidence grows as I read, yet Moses is still reluctant. He is still fumbling around for questions in his little game of “Stump the Creator.”
Now he fears that they will not believe God has truly appeared to him.
That’s an easy one, God says.
He tells Moses to throw his staff on the ground. He does, and it turns into a snake.
Moses runs.
Then God tells Moses to pick up the snake by the tail, and when he does, it becomes a staff again.
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Next, God tells Moses to put his hand inside his cloak, which I’m sure he did with mixed emotions after that ha-ha-really-funny snake thing. He pulls his hand out, and it’s covered with leprosy.
Ack! What kind of crazy stunt . . .
I guess for those of us not so easily convinced by something as ordinary as a talking-and-burning-but-not-burning bush, a little disfiguring disease is in order. God tells him to put his hand back in his cloak, which I’m sure he was more than happy to do. It comes out completely restored.
God instructs Moses to use these same signs to demonstrate that he did indeed meet with the Lord.
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In case there are still objections, God gives a third sign.
Moses is to take water from the Nile and pour it on the ground, where it will become blood.
Nice.
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Where I am struck most is where Moses throws his staff on the ground. It becomes a snake.
And he runs away.
He runs.
I do that.
God works a miracle. He does an amazing thing. But it might look funny. Not what I expected at all. And so I get freaked out and I run away.
I don’t know what to do with it sometimes when I see God work.
I panic.
And so I run.
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Why would I think that what God was doing was intended in some way to harm me? Why would I need to run from God’s working in me or around me?
Didn’t we just see how God doesn’t give us bad things? God gives us good gifts. God’s working in our lives is good.
We can trust Him. We can have confidence in His work for us.
No need to run from it. No need to panic. No need to sound the alarm.
God knows what He’s doing.
Just walk over and pick up your staff.
Pick up your gift from the ground.
It won’t bite.
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Out of Egypt: Who Are You?
Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am . This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ (Exodus 3:13-14)
Glad you’re back. We’re still watching Moses with the bush. Give me one more day or two? Moses has his answer to “Who am I?” So now he wants to know, “Who are You?” Let’s look in…
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Moses’ first attempt to avoid his calling is shot, so he raises the next question.
What if I do go to the Israelites, and they want to know Your name? Then what?
What do I tell them? Huh?
I mean, You know, You and me God, we know each other. We’re doing this burning bush thing together and all. But what if they don’t know You like I know You?
What if they want to know Your name?
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Again, God’s answer is very simple, very definite, yet very perplexing. I know I’d have a hard time arguing with a talking bush that said simply, I AM WHO I AM. Yep, You sure are. There’s not much more to be said to that, except What does that mean?
God’s identity is just that indisputable.
He declares Who He is, and there’s no arguing with it.
The Lord tells Moses to go to the people and tell them Yahweh, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, has sent them. This name, Yahweh, is His name forever. He is to be remembered by this name from generation to generation.
God is eternal. He will truly be remembered as the Lord God Almighty forever.
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Language sometimes is terribly limiting when we try to put words on Who God is. I AM WHO I AM is seen to be absolute and complete, encompassing all the fullness of His character, even that which had yet to be revealed through history.
Moses is to tell the people this is Who sent him.
God knows this name is complete. This name is all Moses needs to have. The people will know what he means.
They’ll know.
I AM WHO I AM.
All the fullness of Who God is.
Jesus helped unfold this fullness as He walked with us on earth. John’s gospel records it over and over.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven.
I am God’s Son.
You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am.
I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.
Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.
I am going away and I am coming back to you.
Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.
You are right in saying I am a king.
I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.
I AM WHO I AM.
And I will be with you.
Simple answers.
Perplexing answers.
Both give us all we need.
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Out of Egypt: Who Am I?
The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” Exodus 3:7-12
You may as well settle in. Moses’ visit with the bush is one of my very favorite parts of Exodus, and we’re going to spend another couple of days here before we’re done. Now that God has Moses’ attention, He begins to reveal His intentions…
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The Lord tells Moses that He has seen the misery of His people in Egypt. He has heard them cry out and He has not turned a deaf ear to their cries. Indeed, He is deeply concerned for them. It is out of this loving concern that He has come to rescue them.
As is so clearly demonstrated over and over in this book, God never does a job halfway. His plan is not merely to save His children from the hands of the Egyptians, but He has chosen a new home for them, a land flowing with milk and honey.
Not just a rescue, but a saving from and a bringing into.
And Moses is the man He has chosen for the task of leading His people out of Egypt and into this wonderful new home.
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Not being too different from most of us, Moses’ first (and second…and third…) response was to object. Yikes! What planet are you on, God? You’ve got to be kidding if you think I’m going back there!
I have to wonder if I might spend more energy thinking up excuses and reasons not to obey God than I do actually thinking through the task I’m called to.
I see it as the George Costanza Method.
Moses begins his long series of objections with what sounds like a very logical question: Who am I that I should go to Pharoah and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?
Now, understand this is logical only from our little human heads. See, from inside our little minds, if someone asked us why we had selected them to do a particular task or project, we would start answering this question by listing all the strengths and abilities this person has, and tell him or her why we made this particular choice for the job.
God doesn’t think from a small mind though. His answer is nothing like this.
In fact, what He says doesn’t seem to answer the question at all.
I WILL BE WITH YOU.
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Was God even listening?
That’s all very nice that You’ll go along, God, but You didn’t answer the question. What you said wasn’t even an answer at all.
Moses asks, “Who am I?”
God says “I’ll be with you.”
God doesn’t affirm Moses’ adequacy. He gives him no pats on the back. He doesn’t build him up for his strengths and abilities. You see, it is not at Moses’ capabilities that God is looking. Rather, it is His own.
God’s simple yet perplexing answer is all we really need to know.
I WILL BE WITH YOU.
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God was looking at His own strengths, not at Moses’ own resources. God knew that it would be only through His power, not Moses’, that the people would be brought to freedom.
Now the answer to the question “Who am I?” is “You’re the one who’s with the One Who’s with you.”
Come to think of it, I don’t think I care to be anyone else.
Being the one who’s with the One Who’s with me equips me for any task He calls me to do.
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God has a way of hearing not our words, but the cries of our hearts. Moses was afraid — God saw that in the question.
What Moses did not need was a simple answer to his question.
He did not need to be told how great he was.
The terrified cry of his heart needed to be answered.
God did that.
He answered the terrified cry with comforting and strong words.
I WILL BE WITH YOU.
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Out of Egypt: Those Meddling Midwives
“The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, ‘When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.’ The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, ‘Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?’ The midwives answered Pharaoh, ‘Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.’ So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.” (Exodus 1:15-21)
Set the scene.
Joseph’s entire generation is dead, and Egypt has a new king who knows nothing about Joseph and his very unique relationship with the king of his day. The Israelites are now multiplying to the point of filling the whole land, and the new king is afraid. So he makes them slaves in order to keep them under control.
Within seconds of beginning the book of Exodus, we get a vivid example of one of the overriding themes of this book: God is sovereign and is in control in all situations.
Check this out: Under their oppression, the Israelites actually continue to multiply. In fact, they seem to multiply and strengthen in direct proportion to the degree to which they are oppressed.
The Egyptian scheme backfires under the divine control of the God of the Israelites, our God.
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Pharaoh, desperate to find a way to keep the Israelites down, adds another nasty piece to the puzzle: all Hebrew baby boys must be killed at birth. This man who was so powerful, the ruler of a massive empire, must resort to killing newborn children in an effort to maintain his security and his position.
Such a hard, tough, stern exterior.
But inside, this mighty, fearsome king was himself afraid of tiny babies.
Try as he might, Pharaoh just can’t seem to get ahead of these Hebrews, even after removing all their power.
He didn’t plan for the Midwife Factor.
The Hebrew midwives fear God, and in that fear they allow the baby boys to live. Pharaoh naturally finds out. It’s difficult after a while to hide the fact that there are male children being born and raised in the Jewish settlement.
So he confronts the midwives and demands an explanation. “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”
It’s like the closing scene of a Scooby Doo cartoon, where the exposed villain mutters, “If it hadn’t been for those meddling midwives kids.”
Thinking quickly, they tell him that the Hebrew women simply give birth before they can get there, and there is nothing they can do.
See, Mr. Pharaoh, Sir, the Hebrew women aren’t like the Egyptian women. The Hebrew women are vigorous. They are strong and robust. No disrespect to your soft and weak Egyptian women, of course. But these powerful Hebrew women are already giving birth before we even can get there. There’s just nothing we can do.
These women are incredible. Pharaoh, a man who has babies killed just for being born, calls in those meddling midwives, and they tell them they aren’t following orders.
It’s not difficult to imagine the possible punishment they may have faced for such willful disregard for the law. But these women know a deep trust and reverence for God and they know He will be with them.
They need only obey Him.
And indeed, God honors their obedience. Not only does it appear from the text that Pharaoh was satisfied with their answer and they were not punished, but God goes on and blesses them further for their obedience.
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God is so clever. And so creative. And so personal.
Look at how He blesses them: He gives them families of their own. How much more appropriate a gift could He have given them? These are women who spend their days delivering other women’s babies. Now they have families of their own. We can trust our God to give us according to our needs and our longings — not according to what would bless our neighbor or what worked well last week in Detroit or Los Angeles. He blesses us according to what would bless our heart, in this moment and in this place. He knows us that well.
God is in control.
And God honors obedience.
By the time we’re through just the first chapter of Exodus, these two truths have lit up the place.
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God is in control. He has it covered.
Step out in obedience. He has you covered.
He honors your obedience. His reward is personal and fitting.
Those meddling midwives.
Trusting God by being obedient.
Trusting God to pour out His reward.
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Out of Egypt
I’ve mentioned before some earlier work I’d played with in the book of Exodus. This was actually while I was in college, though it was several years later before I had anything coherent on paper. One of the things I wanted to do here was to include some exerpts of that longer project. I have some catching up to do this week so I thought it might be a good time to begin doing that. So the entries you read here that are titled Out of Egypt are adapted from that earlier project.
By way of introduction, let me include a piece of the introduction I wrote in 1985 (yeah, it’s been that long) when I was doing the initial study. It was 1991 when I finally compiled the notes. And no, taking a stack of paper to Kinko’s and having copies made and bound does not qualify as “published.” The thing to understand is that, crazy as it may sound, studying Exodus every day in a dorm room in St. Cloud, Minnesota, was one of the most exhilerating things I’ve ever done. It was the first time that I’d spent time with Jesus for the sheer delight of it. It was the first time I remember the Word leaping off the page alive, burning into my heart.
From the 1985 introduction:
I make no claims to be a scholar, nor that this is a scholarly work. I’m just a kid, 22 years old, making my way through college. But this is a kid who has been touched by God in a most remarkable way, right in the heart, where He loves to touch. Exodus was as much an exit out of misconception and disbelief for me as it was an exit out of Egypt for the Israelites.
For a long time I misunderstood what my God wanted from me. I figured that time with Him and in the Word were necessary for fighting the battle. It was necessary to make me easier to get along with. It was necessary because that’s what people who love the Lord do. That’s all true, but I was missing something really big: the sheer thrill of just being with my God and learning from Him. From the first day I opened Exodus, there was never a dull passage. There was never a day when nothing seemed to fit. As the children of Israel journeyed out of Egypt, I journeyed unto Him. Unto knowledge of Him. Unto excitement in simply knowing Him. Unto enjoyment of His company.
People have pulled a lot of themes out of Exodus, I suppose. I see more of God’s personality than anything else. Who He is, what He looks like, how He works, what He cares about, how He feels about His kids, etc. I fell in love reading this book. I saw Him…and what I saw thrilled me.
I reached a point, perhaps to the frustration of my friends, where all I wanted to talk about was what God taught me in Exodus. That’s why I’m writing this. It’s really just my quiet time notes in a form that will make some sense. As I dug into this book, I scribbled whatever jumped out at me into my notebook. But it made sense to no one but me and I feared that in five years I wouldn’t even understand what it said. These are my thoughts…what the Holy Spirit taught me from the pages of Exodus. Some of it was very personalized and may seem trivial to you. But it meant the world to me when I discovered it for the first time.
Let me say one more thing here before I just get to it. I can’t hardly talk about Exodus to you all without saying this. You know how you see the name Muggy pop up now and then in the comments? Most of you don’t know Muggy. But if you could imagine my polar opposite, Muggy’s what you’d be seeing. She was an elementary education major. I was in political science. You can figure it out from there. She is full of energy and enthusiasm, while I like the sound of the words “even keel.” She is a total natural with people and you’d find her in the great room, while I’d prefer a quite den down the hall that most people didn’t know was there. She is an exclamation point where I am perhaps more like period or comma.
God saw fit in my freshman year of college to place me in her Bible study. I think we both spent some time asking what on earth He was thinking. Turns out He was brilliant. Muggy graciously took a sarcastic, entirely too serious know-it-all, who had no time for stickers and markers and cute cards, and certainly not for nonsense like evangelism, under her wing.
And God used Muggy in a mighty way. She stuck with me and discipled me for most of the balance of my college years — she poured her life into me and walked alongside me and taught me by living life in my line of sight. It was she who first persuaded me that I might want to try spending some time with Jesus because I might enjoy it, rather than just to put more stuff in my head.
That the relationship with Him was the very best part of all.
Mug, did I ever tell you that you’re always right up at the top of my list when I consider the people who have the most significant impact on my life?
Because I should have. It’s very true. I’m grateful for your investment then and your continued friendship now.
Ok then, on with the story.
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The Conversation