Excuse me...

Excuse me, who made you?

(Can't be bothered to read all this? Just read the bits in bold!)

Do you ever feel a bit like Moses? Say what? Little explanation first!

[I originally wrote this at the start of September...] I've just started a year as a Church youth work trainee. This blog is an attempt at recording some of what I learn and sharing it for anyone who's interested. Of course, I'm not sure who that might be, so please forgive me if I end up explaining stuff you think everyone should know (I'm not trying to be patronising!) or if I don't explain something I really ought to (in which case feel free to leave a comment! Though I'm really not sure how many people I expect to read this, either..!).

But a moment to make something very clear – I'm limited about what I can actually say, I can't talk about any youth I work with, for child protection purposes. Not only that, but I don't want to name or describe any of the people I work with, youth or not, or the specifics about the events and things we do, for the sake of their privacy. So, like I said, this blog is about what I learn and not what I do.

So, back to Moses. We've started a, 100% optional, year long Bible study on Exodus (the second book in the Bible). Many would say that's crazy, but my supervisor has run it passionately for a few years, and the youth seem to love it. The point being that we've just read chapter 4 with them this week. Chapter 4 starts off midway through a conversation between Moses and God (Jesus specifically, I believe, but I'll discuss that in another post!). God is telling Moses that He's heard about the suffering of Moses' nation back in Egypt (I've really downplayed this, amongst other things, these people were being forced by Pharaoh to kill their own sons at birth. That's horrific!) and has a plan to rescue them through Moses. GREAT STUFF, RIGHT? Apparently not to Moses. 

 Moses is terrified of his task, he doesn't feel worthy and he's afraid of the risks. He starts coming up with all sorts of excuses about how he couldn't possibly do it, one of which is him saying he isn't a good public speaker, he's not good with words, he's not eloquent...

...And I just love God's response... “The LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

(The conversation goes on, with Moses still pleading not to go, and it turns out God already had something in mind (v14b), but you can read that for yourself, if you like.)
Isn't that awesome? I am not, as you may have realised, eloquent at wording stuff. Nor am I at all good with grammar. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't know what I'm saying, it just takes me forever to try and word it so that it doesn't look messy and confusing. This can make me quite nervous (though, no doubt, nowhere near as nervous as Moses was), and passages like that I find really helpful. This is a God who knows us personally. He knows our weaknesses, but He loves and uses us anyway. Our own weaknesses and failings aren't enough to stop His plans.

Pretty cool.

I got shown this video clip the other day by someone else, while not 100% Bible accurate (it's not meant to be, it's a simplification, and it's hardly against what the Bible says), it expresses this scene pretty close to how I imagine it, I really like it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5BQWubuC8g

How do I finish this? All the best? You get the idea. Stop reading. Ta.