by Ginny Owens
God interrupted Moses’s ordinary day with a burning bush that did not burn up and explained His reason for this meeting:
I am the God of your father.… I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors.… I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey. (Ex. 3:6–8)
And then came the clincher—God told Moses he would be the one to do the legwork: “Therefore, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt” (v. 10).
For four hundred years, the Israelites had prayed for this day to come. But Moses was undoubtedly shocked that the Lord was there then, telling him. He was definitely not ready for what God had in mind.
“Who am I that I should go?” he asked (v. 11).
In answer, God introduced a concept that Moses would come to understand firsthand: “I will certainly be with you” (v. 12). In other words, “It isn’t about who you are, Moses—it’s about who I am. I am God, and I am with you.”
God always gives us Himself as the answer to our fears and questions, reminding us that when He calls us to walk through a dark season or to do a difficult thing, He never asks us to do it in our own strength. He insists we do it in His.
Moses continued to question God, which is perfectly understandable. After years of herding sheep, he probably doubted his ability to lead people. And he almost certainly did not possess the courage to speak to a king. Moses seemed certain that his dull life was better than God’s extraordinary plan. God’s plan would mean heading in a new direction, where only God knew the way. It would require trust.
But Moses did get one thing most of us don’t usually get: a clear picture of what would happen next. God commanded Moses to tell the people that He had sent him to them. He would bring them out of Egypt to the Promised Land. God even said that the people would listen (vv. 15–18). Then He gave Moses precise instructions and a description of what was to come (vv. 18–22):
1. He was to ask Pharaoh to let his people go into the desert to worship.
2. Pharaoh wouldn’t let them go … until the Lord struck Egypt with all His miracles.
3. Then the people would go, with the Egyptians willingly giving them their treasures.
The God of all had thought of everything, but Moses still questioned Him further: “What if they won’t believe me and will not obey me but say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you’?” (4:1).
We might at first wonder how Moses could argue with the God of his fathers, who was speaking to him from a fire. At this point, though, Moses’s fear was greater than his faith. He remembered his people’s rejection of him, which led to a forty-year estrangement. But the Lord empowered Moses by repeatedly showing His faithfulness until it was the rhythm he learned to trust.
Remember: God’s Faithful Leading
God, in his graciousness, answered Moses’s declaration of doubt with a question.
The LORD asked him, “What is that in your hand?”
“A staff,” he replied.
“Throw it on the ground,” he said. So Moses threw it on the ground, it became a snake, and he ran from it. (4:2–3)
The Lord didn’t coddle Moses but invited him to face his fear by commanding him to pick up the snake by the tail. Moses did so, and it became a staff again. The Lord explained that Moses would use this sign to convince the Israelites that the God of their fathers had indeed appeared to him (vv. 4–5).
In that moment, God began teaching Moses to trust that He is faithful. But even after God discussed with Moses two more signs he would use with Pharaoh, Moses was still not convinced. His last-ditch effort to avoid this task was to use the excuse that he couldn’t speak well (v. 10).
God responded with an astounding declaration: “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak” (vv. 11–12 ESV).
An incredible challenge when we are facing darkness—whether that darkness be a season of feeling stuck or lost or wondering where God is—is to trust that God has allowed the darkness in our lives and will faithfully guide us through it.
Sure, our sin or other people’s sin can be the catalyst. And yes, the evils of the world can unfairly fall on us. But as Joni Eareckson Tada has said, “Satan and God may want the exact same event to take place—but for different reasons.”2
God absolutely does not delight in our pain. And He is always right there in the midst of it with us, working all things together for good (Rom. 8:28). Even when we don’t understand why things aren’t going according to our plans, we can be confident that the Lord is always faithfully offering His unwavering strength to us.
When I graduated university armed with a teaching license, I had an extraordinary plan for my life:
1. Become an exceptional, well-loved choral director.
2. Help students love both classical and current music.
3. Perhaps get a few of my songs sung by professionals.
I sent out résumés and applications so I could quickly get this plan on the road. A few school administrators got in touch to say they’d like an interview. I was ecstatic. But based on the awkward silence upon meeting each principal, I realized that not being able to see was going to be a greater hurdle than I had anticipated. I tried addressing the questions they wouldn’t ask, like how I’d manage a classroom. But nothing worked.
I met one closed door after another.
At first I believed God was testing me or teaching me patience or instilling some other character trait I’d recognize later. But after several months of interviews, I was just frustrated. God was not going along with my extraordinary plan. I was thankful for the full-time telemarketing job I’d managed to land, but it wasn’t exactly what I had pictured myself doing after graduation. I was completely over the mundaneness of it all.
Where had I gone wrong? I had given up on my music dream, and now my plan to teach was not panning out either? Every day was a plod. I wasn’t sure where I was headed. And I didn’t know where God was.
Yet, having had God’s answer to Moses in Exodus 4:11 in my mind since childhood, I knew God had not made a mistake. Whether I saw it or not, He had an infinite purpose for my “stuckness” and lack of job prospects in my field of study.
During my season of limbo, I began to ask God to show me how to trust that He had some purpose to this detour—and He did. What I believed about God began to change—slowly at first but then drastically.
Through talking life out with mentors and digging deeply into the Scriptures, I discovered that grace was not favor I earned from God by behaving a certain way but God giving Himself freely to me. As I began to recognize that I was God’s dearly beloved daughter, I was able to look back and see how He had already proved this time and again. This truth was so life changing for me that it prompted new songs, which I would eventually share with audiences. It became clear in that season that my tedious plodding was God’s good plan.
We often stop believing that God is good because we don’t see eye to eye with Him on what good is. We think that when something is difficult, God is not in control, has gotten it wrong, or doesn’t care. As I went to Him with my questions and as I asked Him for peace, He began to show me who He was in ways I’d never seen. As I waited for something extraordinary to happen, I began to realize that the extraordinary One was walking with me. He was eager to give me new eyes to see the dull, plodding path as a road full of vibrant colors and awesome wonders.
As Moses taught the Israelites to sing their national anthem, he surely remembered the first day when God came to him and gave power to his shepherd’s staff. And he wanted them to remember God’s faithfulness as He provided a cloud and a pillar for guidance, food and water in the wilderness, protection from enemies, and laws of justice and mercy to guide them
.
Remembering God’s faithfulness, Moses no doubt taught Israel to sing with all fervor and gusto: “The LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance. In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye.… The LORD alone led him” (Deut. 32:9–10, 12 NIV).
Return from Darkness
Much of the song Moses taught the Israelites is about what would happen when they turned away from God. During his forty-year journey with them, he watched them reject God over and over. He knew they would again.
When God delivered His people from Egypt, He led them away with treasures given to them by the Egyptians, and He provided guidance and protection on their way. But as soon as Israel realized Pharaoh and his army were pursuing them, they lost it—yelling at Moses for not leaving them enslaved, a more preferable situation to the death they thought was imminent (Ex. 14:11–12). But then, through Moses, the Lord parted the sea, saving the Hebrews and thwarting the Egyptian ambush.
The Israelites were thankful at first, praising God with an ecstatic song of gratitude for their rescue (15:1–21). But only three days later, they were grumbling again because they could not find water in the wilderness (v. 24). Moses immediately cried to the Lord for help, and God provided (v. 25). This rhythm repeated throughout the rest of Moses’s life: he trusted God to lead the way, the people grumbled against him and God, Moses desperately pleaded with God for mercy, and God delivered them.
Three months after their departure from Egypt, the Lord prepared to give Moses the laws that would protect Israel in the desert and when they were settled as a nation. The people promised with one accord to do all that the Lord said (19:8). Then Moses brought the people to meet with God. They heard the loud trumpet and saw Mount Sinai engulfed with God’s fire. They were terrified and begged Moses to be the one to listen to and speak with God; they were too afraid (19:17–20; 20:18–19).
How quickly they forgot what they had seen and heard! When Moses went up for an extended meeting with God on Mount Sinai, Israel had Aaron, the priest, make them a golden god to serve (32:1–6). The entire rest of the Old Testament is about the Israelites’ tendency to rebel against the Lord their God and follow other gods, as God and Moses knew they would. The words of their national anthem were to remind them both of their predisposition to run from God and of their desperate need to turn to Him again.
I have come to learn something that Moses knew well: Any path you take in your own strength, no matter how adventurous at first, will eventually feel endlessly monotonous and become dangerous. But leaning fully on God’s faithfulness brings you strength and hope, whatever road He is leading you on.
Within a year of starting to find purpose in my own plodding path, I was recording my first album as a solo artist. A music publisher in town had heard some of my homegrown songs and revived my dormant singing dream. The songs I had written during my semester of general education classes were some of his favorites, and after they were tweaked, those songs—and their writer—found a home at Michael W. Smith’s new record label, Rocketown Records.
As all this came into view, my excitement grew in leaps and bounds. When my record released, I quit my day job to venture out into the world of touring. My extraordinary life had finally arrived.
Six months in, however, I was over it.
Each day was long and filled with endless work—traveling, interviews, and marketing meetings. I did very little actual singing and even less communing with God. Like the Israelites, I began to forget what it was like to wait for His wisdom and find His rest. I turned to other gods—my career and pleasing others. I learned there is no such thing as living in a neutral place. We are always moving in a direction. And if the noise of our lives is pulling us away from the light of God’s love and truth, our only hope is to return from the darkness. My inner peace, my ability to navigate the stress of my new life, did not return until I turned my gaze back to God.
Repeat
Despite my disenchantment, my early years of piano practice, songwriting, and incessant touring helped me flourish. I learned to patiently craft songs, to sing without stage fright, and to love meeting new people. I also began to learn in that season something I’m grasping even more deeply now: putting in the work pays off. Because of all that work, today I am able to sing in any type of situation and under any kind of pressure.
But beyond literal singing, I’ve learned that my heart sings only when I’m not trying to forge this path on my own. When I’m holding tightly to the hand of my Father, listening to His voice for guidance, I’m content with putting one foot in front of the other on this faith walk, no matter how fast or slow the pace. I’m a more peaceful and loving child of His and friend to others when I sing along with the essence of Moses’s song:
Rehearse God’s greatness.
Remember His faithfulness.
Return from darkness.
(Repeat)
The Bigger Story
I love that God was preparing Moses for his world-changing adventures throughout every moment of his plodding life beforehand. Moses needed his education to write the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. He needed his military training for leadership and logistics. And he needed his shepherding skills so he could patiently protect and manage the people God had tasked him with.
Moses also learned to truly love the intractable people God had entrusted to him, leading, disciplining, and challenging them in a way he could not have done as a young man. But as a man fully resting in God’s guidance, he could.
Moses points us toward Jesus, who spent His life on earth serving, loving, listening, speaking truth, and trusting His Father—and repeating those actions again and again. But Moses could not do all that Christ did. Moses’s plodding path under God’s leadership led the Israelites to the borders of the Promised Land. Christ’s plodding path led Him to the cross we should have carried. As we grumbled, like the children of Israel grumbled, Jesus quietly, humbly, powerfully led us into ultimate and lasting freedom—once and for all.
When my career, whether teaching or music, was my only goal at the end of the plodding path, it felt mundane. I wanted to get there in a hurry, to accomplish all my goals yesterday. Indeed, the things I have accomplished have been greatly rewarding—for at least a few hours. But when they matter to me more than anything else, the next morning is always a grind all over again.
But when my goal is walking with God on the plodding path, it feels life-giving. There is opportunity to stop and enjoy the beauty of nature or time with a friend. There is space for listening, breathing, and praying. And there’s lots of singing of hope as I go—step by step by step.
Your Song for the Plodding Path
Where are you in your journey? Do you feel as if God has you on an endless, ordinary road and you don’t know why? Do you feel like the pathway is so full of busyness that you can’t find God’s hand or hear His voice? Or perhaps the pace you’re keeping is a peaceful plod onward.
Wherever you are, write a song for your path below. Here are some words to inspire you:
Be Thou my vision,
O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me,
Save that Thou art—
Thou my best thought
By day or by night,
Waking or sleeping,
Thy presence my light.3
Singing God’s Song
Let’s sing and remember God’s faithfulness, just as Moses and Israel did: “He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he” (Deut. 32:4 NIV).
Centuries later, when the Israelites had forgotten the truth of their national anthem for long enough, they were exiled from the Promised Land. Still, the Lord promised that if they would turn again to Him, He would be found by them. He promises this hope to us too. So let’s memorize these words: “You will seek me and find me when you search for me
with all your heart” (Jer. 29:13).
On that day Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam sang:
When the leaders lead in Israel, when the people volunteer, blessed be the LORD. Listen, kings! Pay attention, princes! I will sing to the LORD; I will sing praise to the LORD God of Israel. LORD, when you came from Seir, when you marched from the fields of Edom, the earth trembled, the skies poured rain, and the clouds poured water. The mountains melted before the LORD, even Sinai, before the LORD, the God of Israel.
In the days of Shamgar son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the main roads were deserted because travelers kept to the side roads. Villages were deserted, they were deserted in Israel, until I, Deborah, arose, a mother in Israel. Israel chose new gods, then there was war in the city gates. Not a shield or spear was seen among forty thousand in Israel. My heart is with the leaders of Israel, with the volunteers of the people. Blessed be the LORD! You who ride on white donkeys, who sit on saddle blankets, and who travel on the road, give praise! Let them tell the righteous acts of the LORD, the righteous deeds of his villagers in Israel, with the voices of the singers at the watering places. Then the LORD’s people went down to the city gates. “Awake! Awake, Deborah! Awake! Awake, sing a song! Arise, Barak, and take your prisoners, son of Abinoam!”…
The stars fought from the heavens; the stars fought with Sisera from their paths. The river Kishon swept them away, the ancient river, the river Kishon. March on, my soul, in strength!
Judges 5:1–12, 20–21