Moses Kept Finding Reasons Not to Go

Your child asks a question you are not ready for.

Why did Grandpa have to die? Is God real? Why did that kid at school say those things about me? Why don’t you and Mom live together anymore?

You freeze. You change the subject. Or you give a quick answer that you know was not good enough.

Later you lie awake thinking, “Other dads would have known what to say.”

The story of Moses at the burning bush gets more interesting when you know what came before it.

Moses grew up in Pharaoh’s palace. Stephen, preaching in Acts, says Moses “was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action” (Acts 7:22). Educated. Capable. Confident.

At forty, he tried to rescue his people his own way. He killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew slave and buried him in the sand. The next day, he discovered everyone knew. He fled for his life to the desert of Midian (Exodus 2:11 to 15).

Then came forty years of silence. Moses married, had sons, and spent his days watching sheep. Not even his own sheep. Exodus says he was keeping the flock “of his father-in-law” (Exodus 3:1). In Egypt, shepherds were looked down on (Genesis 46:34). The prince of Egypt had become a hired hand in the wilderness.

By the time God appeared in the burning bush, Moses was eighty years old (Exodus 7:7). The confident young man was gone.

So listen to his answers. Count them. He gives God five objections.

“Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11).

“Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ What should I tell them?” (Exodus 3:13).

“What if they do not believe me or listen to my voice?” (Exodus 4:1).

“I have never been eloquent... I am slow of speech and tongue” (Exodus 4:10).

And finally, “Please, Lord, send someone else” (Exodus 4:13).

The man once “powerful in speech” now says he cannot speak. Forty years of failure had convinced him he was not enough.

God’s answer to the first objection set the tone for all of them: “I will surely be with you” (Exodus 3:12). God never argued that Moses was more capable than he thought. He pointed to Himself. “Who gave man his mouth?... Is it not I, the LORD?” (Exodus 4:11). And when Moses asked His name, God answered, “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14).

The answer to inadequacy was not confidence. It was presence. Even when Moses’ last objection made God angry, God still gave him help: his brother Aaron would go with him (Exodus 4:14).

Centuries later, Jesus stood in the temple and said, “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58). The crowd picked up stones because they understood exactly what He was claiming. The I AM who spoke from the bush had come in the flesh. John calls Him the Word made flesh (John 1:14). And He promised His people, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

You may really be unprepared for this. No father has enough wisdom in himself to raise a child well. But the same God who was with Moses is with you.

So when you do not know what to say, you can say that. “I don’t know. Let’s look at what God’s Word says together.” Or, “That’s a big question. Give me a day to think and pray, and then let’s talk.”

That is not failure. That is a father leaning on a wisdom bigger than his own, and teaching his child to do the same.