Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“Moses said, “Oh, Lord, please send someone else.” Yahweh’s anger burned against Moses, and he said, “What about Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Also, behold, he is coming out to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. You shall speak to him, and put the words in his mouth. I will be with your mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do. He will be your spokesman to the people. It will happen that he will be to you a mouth, and you will be to him as God. You shall take this rod in your hand, with which you shall do the signs.”“
(Exodus 4:13-17)

“He also who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you that you are a hard man, reaping where you didn’t sow, and gathering where you didn’t scatter. I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the earth. Behold, you have what is yours.’”
(Matthew 25:24-25)

Moses did NOT want to go. He’d messed up forty years previously, trying to move into his calling without the timing. He cost the Israelites an additional forty years of slavery. He had flop sweat. He’d lost his confidence. He’d gone from being educated, fit, a good speaker, and a capable military leader (Acts 7:22-25) to a shepherd with no confidence and a belief in his inability to speak to others authoritatively. He’d spent the last forty years looking for a sign from God, and now that he had it… He was balking. Maybe this wasn’t the sign he was expecting. Maybe he thought he’d be a behind-the-front lines commander. I don’t know. But he was pulling every excuse that he could think of to NOT follow the call now that the time had come. He was humble now, but he had lost ALL confidence in the abilities God had given him to complete his calling.

The last servant had a poor idea of his master. A wrong idea. There is no evidence in the text or in the behaviour of either his fellow servants or his master to prove his opinion of his master. Even with the opinion that his master was hard, demanding, and ruthless, he chose to do nothing instead of… ANYTHING. As the master rightly points out, he could have even sat on the money in a bank and produced SOMETHING. But he chose actions that produced NOTHING. Not only that, but actions that GUARANTEED he would produce NOTHING. Moses was gun-shy, but this servant took it to the next level.

Summary

We can HINDER God (Psalm 78:41; Matthew 13:58). We can say NO. It can be uncomfortable looking at what God has for us to do. We look at the calling and we look at ourselves and the gap between those two things can be SIGNIFICANT. The thing to remember is that God EQUIPS us. He gives us EVERYTHING we need to succeed at what He has called us to do. As long as we don’t get caught up in a WRONG IDEA of who He is, we will be able to have confidence that we’re prepared. Knowing His moral character will assure us that He would NEVER call us to do what He has not prepared us to do. It may be difficult. It may be uncomfortable. It might stretch us. But we will be able to do what we have been asked to do because God asked us and He NEVER asks for what He has not prepared us to accomplish.