Exodus 4:13-17
While traveling on an isolated stretch of interstate in the Southwest many years ago, I looked up from my reading when my wife gasped. Ahead of us we saw a van weave, clip the edge of the highway and roll over several times, spewing paint cans until finally coming to a rest on its side. Stopping several hundred yards behind it, I jumped out of the car and ran towards the motionless vehicle . . . then slowed.
There was no cellphone to call for help. I was aware of our isolation. I knew I lacked medical training. I feared what I would find.
So, I yelled, “Are you all right?” Mercifully, a hand and then a head popped out of the side window, saying they were okay.
I’d like to think I would be that courageous person who would run back inside a burning building to save a child if needed—but I remember that van and wonder.
Today, in a last attempt to avoid God’s calling, Moses asks, “Lord, is it possible you asked the wrong person?” The person who simply dismisses Moses for not having enough faith is missing the point. His fears—rejection, authority, skills, and disabilities—are legitimate.
An experiment at the University of Pennsylvania followed a group with general anxiety disorders for a month after participants shared their fears. They found that 91.4 percent of the predicted worries never happened. As Rudyard Kipling writes, “Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.”
Moses finds then, as we can discover today, that God knows both our fears and dreads, and can be trusted to equip us for the journey ahead.
Consider
On many calendars, next Thursday is National Face Your Fears Day. This week name your fears and any steps you can take to address them.
Pray
Lord, thank you for hearing my doubts and fears. Calm me. Guide me. Help me trust you more. Amen.