for every excuse, an answer

A couple weeks back we talked at K-Life about the story of the 'burning bush' in Exodus and how Moses emerges as one of the greatest leaders in Biblical history. No doubt Moses was a historic figure, but I wanted to go back to the beginning of how Moses was even put in the position to lead the Hebrews out of exile and to the gates of Canaan.

The story is found in Exodus 3 & 4 and it begins like this:
"Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God."

Moses is an adopted prince of Egypt, turned wanted Hebrew murderer, hiding in the back of the desert; yet God still found him. The burning bush in itself, to me anyway, isn't all that strange or miraculous. I don't know, maybe brush fires are rare in an Arabian desert, but the fact is that Scripture says that Moses noticed the burning bush, and upon seeing it not being consumed turned aside to see why. It was then, after Moses took notice that God called to him.

I think that last part about God calling to Moses only after Moses acknowledge the effort of God to catch our attention. How many times to we look past a seemingly natural occurrence in our lives when in fact God is trying to get our attention.

We know God calls Moses to lead a nation out of bondage, a feat I would argue most of use will never experience, but we have all been called, directly by God, to a command, a commission, a calling. We'll get back to that.

Moses, after a direct command from God, has the pride (some may say he was shy, but defiance (excuses) in the face of God, I would call pride as some level) to come up with not 1 but 4 excuses, and God in His sovereignty has an answer for every one.

You can read the excuses yourself, and God response to each one, but the thing that I think stands out to me and I find applicable to everyday life are the following questions:

1. What is it that God has called us to do a Christians?
2. What are our excuses to not live a sold out life for Christ?
3. What are the pride issues at the root of our excuses that have us believing a lie or doubt about God?