Safeguarding

Most of us will do quite a lot to avoid pain.  We typically don’t like sitting in the puddles of grief or stepping out into the scary.  Doing it afraid is hard!  Unfortunately, along the journey, we’ve picked up blocks and started building.  We build walls.  We build facades.  Building sentences to shield us from the potential pain.  Yet, within these “safeguarding tendencies” (excuses, aggression, withdrawal), we hold back from some amazing things God has planned.  Throughout the Bible, we see people who tried these same things and things didn’t turn out well.  So, this week, let’s take some time to dig into the areas we sabotage ourselves instead of stepping into God’s amazing, awesome, crazy, illogical, GOOD plan!

Kicking it off big, let’s look at Moses. Skip on over to Exodus 4. We’ve got Moses who, well, to put it simple, isn’t all that confident in himself or thrilled with the idea that God wants to use him.

¹⁰And Moses said to the Lord, O Lord, I am not eloquent or a man of words, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and have a heavy and awkward tongue.

….¹²Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and will teach you what you shall say.

¹³And he said, Oh, my Lord, I pray You, send by the hand of [some other] whom You will [send].

¹⁴Then the anger of the Lord blazed against Moses….

Not only is Moses coming up with excuses as to why he shouldn’t be the one who God sends, but He’s pretty much begging God to use somebody else!  God chose Moses and wanted to use him in mighty ways, but Moses’ own fear and excuses got in the way.  God isn’t a fan of excuses.  He isn’t a fan of hearing that you don’t think you’re good enough for what He’s already planned.  Now, in His grace God met Moses where he was at.  He allowed Aaron to accompany him through the scary task.

So, what about us…God may not be telling you to go speak to Pharaoh, but He may be telling you to apologize, to reach out to a friend, to spend time reading the Bible, to take a sabbath day, to go out for a run, to go on a mission trip, to stay right where you’re at, to go to school, to volunteer…the list goes on.  Excuses are easy to come up with for all sorts of things.

What excuse do you need to let go so you can do what God’s asked? 

psst…i’ll stop by in the comments later and let you know what mine is =)