I Have Never Been Eloquent

O LORD, I HAVE NEVER BEEN ELOQUENT, NEITHER IN THE PAST NOR SINCE YOU HAVE SPOKEN TO ME. I AM SLOW OF SPEECH. Exodus 4.10.

Once you become a child of God, you expect Him to do wonders in your life. And He does! You become a ‘new person’ in Christ. By God’s Spirit you are able to get rid of your sinful habits and begin to lead a righteous life. However, most Christians are obsessed only with the physical and material blessings from God. You wish to become wealthy, healthy and happy forever – like in the Cinderella story! But unlike our prosperity prophets, the calling of Jesus Christ to all is, “Take up your cross daily and follow me!” You can be sure that with the cross, you will also experience its accompanying glories too!

Observe the lives of our heroes of the Bible and you will find that though life was great it never was rosy for them! Moses met God or rather God met Moses at the burning bush in the desert of Midian. He was in deep distress and so were his people. Moses was yearning for the God of his fathers and seeking deliverance from the slavery in Egypt. To a soul who seeks Him diligently, God will show up sometime, somewhere in someway!

God told Moses that He had heard the cry of His people, Israel, and seen their distress and He was going to send Moses to deliver them! God gave him miraculous powers to prove to the people of Israel and the Egyptians that it was He who sent him (Moses).

But there was a great problem. Moses was a stammerer! He complained about it and argued that he couldn’t possibly do the deliverance job for God and His people. He was saying in effect, ‘if You’re such a mighty God and You can do great miracles and You want me to do this impossible task, why is it that You cannot stop my stammering – a small impediment?’

Aren’t we asking God the same questions today? You are the great and mighty God who did all the miracles in the Bible. Why then am I suffering from all kinds of distresses and diseases and deprivations? Why can’t You do something to stop all this so that I can be free and happy to serve You? Instead of instantly healing Moses, God told him, “Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say." Then the Lord offered Aaron, his brother to speak on Moses’ behalf.

I have often asked God, “Why can’t You just heal me of all ailments and keep me fit always so that I can do Your job better!” But the Lord’s way is not our way. The Lord didn’t heal Moses. But the Lord helped him to speak up to the great Pharaoh’s face, in spite of the stammering! The Lord did numerous miracles through Moses and he even parted the Red Sea! The Lord did not heal the apostle Paul of his painful sickness but sent him all over Asia and Europe as a missionary. Sometimes, it is the only way God can keep us humble and use us!

Dear believer, the Lord may be doing a similar thing with you right now! Trust in God and keep on doing what you have to do. God can achieve His purposes in you without doing the miracle that you expect! But, God often condescends to do that miracle that you ask of Him! His ways are past finding out!

Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord, You have said, ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts’ (Isa 55.9). Help me to trust You and accept that Your ways are always higher and more blessed, whatever it be. Amen.