Church planting and Moses

Right now I am going through the book of Exodus in my own study. I love the opening chapters and what it speaks about for how God works. I mean, God comes to Moses and is essentially like, “Hey, I am sending you to take My people out of Egypt. Go tell them and do it.” Moses is like us. He’s practical. He’s got a couple decent questions. Like, “Uh, God why in the world should they believe me? And, “I have no speaking skills whatsoever, how could I to talk to, much less lead these people?” And God is like “K, go tell them what I say, and then here’s some signs for you.” In fact in one part it says something along the lines of signs that they may believe.” hmmm. That part had me thinking for a while though. So often, we want a sign from God. “Show me something and I’ll know it’s from you and what you want me to do.” Yet, God seems to work a different way. He says, “Go, speak what I have given you to say, and then the sign of what I told you will happen, will happen.” God tells Moses exactly what will happen. But, it all comes after Moses goes and speaks to the people and to Pharaoh. That is often how God works in the Bible. He has those with whom He has given the vision speak, and then He gives them the signs to back it up. And it isn’t always in miracle, but sometimes in the ordinary. For example, God says to Moses that Pharaoh won’t let them go. Just a simply fact of what is going to happen here. Moses gets a good boost from meeting up with Aaron, and the Hebrew people are behind him and excited, but then he goes to Pharaoh and not only gets shot down, but gets an increased workload on the people he is supposed to be delivering. But, the promise is there. Moses did what he was supposed to do, and the result was just as God said, that he would go to Pharaoh and Pharaoh would say “no.” That’s how it often works in the Bible, and that’s how it seems to work with Church planting as well. We do what God says, and then He confirms it. I would so much rather have everything just show up and be perfect before we need it and take that as a sign and comfort, yet that’s not God’s way. It is going, trusting, and doing, and then seeing the sign come.  

~ by Eric Whitman on June 26, 2008.