Exodus 4

Nestled in the midst of Moses’ whining and excuses, we find this nugget of faith. Really, it’s a glimpse of the great faith that will show itself again and again over the next forty years. Moses has been telling God all of the reasons why He was the wrong guy for the job of leading Israel out of Egypt, so God gave Moses a sign.

Exodus 4:1-3 (NIV)

4:1 Moses answered, “What if [the Israelites] 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.”

I confess, if it were me and I was already in the throws of whining and complaining, I probably would have continued to grumble and maybe even outright refuse. I mean really??? A snake??? I don’t want to have anything to do with snakes, not even the harmless ones. You should have seen me the time a snake went slithering through my feet while I was working in the garden. Screaming like a little girl doesn’t begin to cover it…

Moses was scared enough that when the staff initially turned into a snake, he ran away. That would be me! Then God told him to pick it up “BY THE TAIL!” I know very little about snakes, but I do know that if I ever pick one up (almost guaranteed I won’t), I should pick it up right behind the head so that it can’t bite me. The Bible doesn’t tell us what kind of snake it was, but in the classic movie “The Ten Commandments,” they decide the snake is a cobra. I can tell you that there is no way that I will ever pick up a cobra, especially by the tail. And yet Moses obeys the Lord and picks up the snake by the tail and sees the miracle of his staff returned to him.

In my “About Me” page on my blog site, I say that I write in order to process what I learn. This is very true of me. I often have to chew on stuff for awhile before I really see things and get the meanings. For example, I studied this passage back in September at BSF and again a few weeks ago for my Sunday School class and I am really only now chewing on the implication of faith that is defined here, because I believe the act of picking that snake up by the tail, was one of pure faith.

However, in the next breath, Moses continues his mission to give God all of the reasons he is not the right man for this job. If I had been there, I don’t think I would really consider Moses to be a great man of faith or to even have much faith at all. And yet, when we look back from the end of his life, we can see just how great his faith really was. I am so thankful that God chose to include this in the Bible, because the way Moses acted (having a great moment of faith, followed by a crash and burn moment) is just like me.

See, I have had moments of great faith followed by total acts of cowardice too. I’ve argued with God that I wasn’t the right person for the job. But maybe one day, at the end of my life, someone will be able to look back on my life and see a person of overall great faith. I hope that some day my children and grandchildren (eventually) will see my life as a testimony to God’s grace. I pray that God will use my failures to grow my faith just as He did for Moses and that others can learn from my mistakes. That is the kind of legacy I’d like to leave behind.

It’s easy to look at Moses standing at the burning bush from our perspective and wonder why he didn’t get it. Yet, often when I’m the one at the bush, I don’t get it either. These verses give me hope that God will turn my failures to faith just like He did for Moses.

How about you? Have you had an epic fail that you can look back on and see how God brought great faith from it? I’d love to hear from you!