Scripture Reading: Exodus 6-7

“Now it came about on the day when the LORD spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, that the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘I am the LORD; speak to Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I speak to you.’ But Moses said before the LORD, ‘Behold, I am unskilled in speech; how then will Pharaoh listen to me?’

“Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘See, I make you as God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet.’” (Exodus 6:28-7:1, NASB)

As I have probably shared before some time ago, I was getting ready to go to lunch with a friend one day. Just before heading out the door, I took that one last glance in the mirror and was shocked to see coke-bottle eyes behind my glasses. “What’s up with my glasses today?” I thought to God’s ear. He instructed my heart to go in peace and not worry about it.

Sitting during lunch, my friend was having a very difficult time with past issues of life and current situations. I felt the strong Spirit of the Lord pouring forth encouragement through me to her, and she was intently listening. Suddenly I realized she was staring at my eyes, following them everywhere they went. Thinking surely their hugeness must be distracting her, I ducked my head. Immediately I heard in my spirit, “You get that head back up and look her in the eye.” Which I of course did, jerking back as a soldier comes to attention with such a stern order from their commander and chief. Lunch went well and as I climbed into my car thinking of what a strange experience that was, I glanced in the mirror to see that my eyes looked normal behind my glasses again. “Hum. Wonder what that was all about,” I querried.

The following Sunday I sat next to my friend in Sunday school. As the teacher was closing up the session, my friend said, “I just have to share something. Darlene and I had lunch this week and God mightily used her to encourage me so greatly. But the awesome thing was that I saw God in her eyes!”

Sometimes God wants to use us to reveal Himself in physical, visible ways to those around us. He makes us “as God” to them for His purposes. It can be an awesome experience and will often challenge our own sense of insecurity and inadequacy. That is what Moses was coming into in this passage; his sense of insufficiency was being challenged. Often times, as God tried to do with me as I glanced in the mirror that morning to see my Little Rascals coke-bottle eyes staring back at me, God will warn us that He is about to use us to reveal Himself. But God did not stop there with Moses as He continued his heads up message:

“You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh that he let the sons of Israel go out of his land. But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt.” (7:2-3)

Have you ever had a time when one person in your concentric circles was constantly challenging your stance as a believer or coming against you to get their way? It can be difficult to stand our ground and keep believing God when facing the hard heart of man. Sometimes their hard heart is a result of their hard life. But as we see here, sometimes it is the work of God, desiring to reveal Himself through the challenge. As said in the previous Blog, God used the stubbornness of Pharaoh to show His own might, and in doing so, to show the people who worshipped many gods the impotence of their gods.

What challenge are you facing right now? Does it come against your sense of ability, giving God opportunity to reveal His ability to and through you? Are you facing a stubborn wall, whether through the hardened ways of another, or through a stronghold set up in your own life? Such challenges are not a time to become discouraged and fall away or cow back. They are a time to press forward in the power God supplies and discover the thing(s) He wants to reveal of Himself.

“When Pharaoh does not listen to you, then I will lay My hand on…” (vs 4).

Every challenge we face is opportunity to go it alone, or to trust in the Lord and see His hand move. And every challenge to our sense of adequacy gives opportunity for God to reveal Himself through us, that others may see His eyes in us. Surrendering self to Him equips us to be “As Gods” being God’s eyes, representing Him in the earth.

Father, You are with us and for us, just as You were with Moses and Aaron long ago. You are the same yesterday, today, and forever. Your desire is for us, and You move in our lives to reveal Yourself in ways that free people from their personal Egypt. Help us to have courage to be Your eyes, Your body, Your mouthpiece, used of You to “be as God” to those who need to see You in the earth. In Jesus I pray, amen.

“Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians 3:4-6, NASB)