Real Faith is Making Much of God and Little of Ourselves

I was reading in Exodus chapters 3 and 4 one day and was struck by Moses’ unbelief.  This is the section of Exodus where God calls Moses to free Israel from Egyptian slavery. 

Moses was tending the flocks out in the desert when he saw a bush on fire that didn’t appear to be burning. He decided to get closer to see the strange sight. As Moses stares in amazement, God speaks to him from the bush. He has a job for Moses. “I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:10) I have heard many skeptics say that the sight of a burning bush and an audible voice would convince them but it did not seem to convince Moses. “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” Did you catch that? What is amazing is that God meets Moses in his unbelief with mercy: “I will be with you.” But Moses isn’t convinced. He starts going down a long list of “what if’s” to try and convince God he is a poor choice for this assignment. However, God continues to meet Moses in his unbelief to show him he has no reason to doubt. He even gives him some miraculous tricks he can perform on demand for skeptics to dismiss the charge he has been out in the sun too long. If you could throw down your wooden staff and have it turn into a snake would you be convinced?  Moses wasn’t. “I am slow of speech and tongue.” God answers this with a reminder that he made Moses’ tongue and that he is able to give Moses the right words to say. Good enough? No way! “Please send someone else to do it.” God was angry at Moses for this last one. But instead of giving into Moses begging like a 3 year old, God once again meets Moses’ weakness and unbelief with mercy. “What about your brother, Aaron? I know he can speak well... He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth...” (Exodus 4:14, 16)

What’s with the excuses? Moses’ problems were two-fold: he made too much of his weaknesses and too little of God’s power, goodness and glory. But notice, God repeatedly reminded Moses of who he is. He is the God of Moses’ forefathers. He is the God who hears the cries of his people. His sovereign power is with Moses in this assignment. He is the Creator who made Moses’ mouth along with everything else. And finally he demonstrates himself to be the God who meets us with mercy even when our hearts are crippled by unbelief. Making too much of ourselves can come in two forms: we either inflate our intellectual abilities or we inflate our weaknesses so that they eclipse our view of God’s power and glory. Both are wrong. Both are remedied by getting over ourselves and seeing God for who he is, as he has revealed himself. We may be at different stages of unbelief, but God has been pleased to give all of us plenty of reasons to believe. Hopefully, we haven’t eclipsed those reasons with excuses or by over inflating our strengths or weakness. But even then, God meets us with mercy and grace. Yes even the skeptics have experienced this whether they see it or not. Making much of God is what faith is all about for faith enables us to see God, ourselves, the world and our place in God’s world the way God sees them. But isn’t it comforting to know that even when faith fails, his mercy doesn’t?