Spoken With Love: Week 4 Day 1

Exodus 4:1-5

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. 4 Then 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.”

Moses had already lived a unique life. Born during terrible persecution, he was hidden as a baby to escape the murderous plans of Pharaoh. In an amazing twist, baby Moses was discovered by Pharaoh’s daughter and adopted. He grew up in the household of the man who had tried to kill him! As he became an adult, however, it became clearer that he did not belong in that Egyptian palace. Moses had seen the further persecution of his own people. He tried to take matters into his own hands, and ended up killing an Egyptian and fleeing to escape the punishment. This is when things slowed down. For the next few decades Moses tended sheep. He had a small family and a quiet life up until the point that God appeared to him in a burning bush! Suddenly, everything was going to change again.

God appeared to Moses and let him know that he had been chosen to help deliver God’s people. When Moses hedged, God used the staff to display His power. What I find interesting is that Moses already had the staff, it had been part of his everyday life, yet God used it to display His might. God made something ordinary, extraordinary. 

How has God done this in your life?