Exodus 4
1 Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you’?”
2 Then the LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied.
3 The LORD said, “Throw it on the ground.” Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it.
4Then the LORD said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand.
5 “This,” said the LORD, “is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”
The people who know me the best, those people who have been around me a long time, know without a doubt, what my two biggest fears are….Snakes and Lightning….in that order. Both can just jump up and bite you.
Lightning scares me bad. I don’t care if I am in the house safely looking out the window. If there is a bright flash of lightning and a loud boom immediately following, I am magically away from the window and in the middle of the room. If there is someone else or something else in the middle of the room, it becomes a low priority because that is where my new space is. If I am outside when that same kind of flash happens, it doesn’t take me long to find a place to hide. I have hurt myself (and other people) trying to get to shelter during a thunderstorm before.
But, as scared as I am of lightning, I am ten times as terrified of snakes. I will climb air and scream like a girl if a snake surprises me. I don’t even like to look at pictures of snakes. My hunting buddies see it as an opportunity to have some fun with me. I need to think about getting some new hunting buddies.
All the more reason that I can relate to Moses when he met God on the mountain. He had just seen a bush catch fire without burning up. And now God himself was speaking to him. I can imagine the conversation going something like this… “What’s that you’ve got there in your hand, Moses?”, said God. Moses replied, “Oh this ole thing? That’s my staff. I made it myself. We’ve been through a lot together. I’ve used it to herd sheep, I use it when I’m hiking, knocked a few varmints in the head with it, play a little air guitar once in a while or pretend I’m Luke Skywalker with my light saber. I’ve even killed a few snakes with it. Did I tell you that I hate snakes?”
So God said “Throw it down.” Now, the Bible doesn’t say so, but I would have hesitated. I would have questioned God, just like we sometimes do when He asks us to let go of something really important in our lives. But the Bible says that Moses did as he was told.
What happened next is the part I can relate to. When Moses threw the staff to the ground, it became a SNAKE. Yes, a snake. Not a puppy. Not a bunny rabbit. Not a furry kitten. A snake. And Moses did just what I would have done…he ran away.
But God called Moses back and told him to do something that I’m not sure I could have done. He told him to pick the snake up. God was asking Moses to face his fear…and he obeyed and when he did, the one thing that he depended on in life was restored.
I was reminded by someone recently that I should not allow my fears to prevent me from God’s plan for my life and the blessings that could result from it. I know without a doubt that the reminder was a word from God because I had been thinking about my fears that week and was considering to take a different path in life because of those fears. That word from God may have possibly altered my life and other lives forever. It scares me and excites me for the blessings that are ahead.
What are your fears right now? Are they keeping you from making an important decision in your life? Is God asking you to lay down something important to you? Do something that you never though you could! Grab that fear by the tail, pick it up and watch what God does! His blessings are infinite! Go God!!
higley rides again 