All Dressed Up for Dinner

An excuse is what we offer when we don’t really want to do something. It’s the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie. Or, as someone put it, an excuse is a fancy lie all dressed up for dinner.

No matter how we define them, we’ve all made excuses. Even Moses.

Forty years had passed since he fled Egypt for the back side of the desert. He probably thought he was done. After all, he had taken matters into his own hands and killed an Egyptian slave driver. In some ways he was a has-been, a failure, an embarrassment. Even worse, he was a murderer running from the law.

So, when the voice of God came to him through a bush that wouldn’t stop burning, Moses basically said, “Not me. I don’t think I’m the right guy.”

But God was saying, “I think you’re just the right guy I can use at this moment.”

At 80 years old, Moses was more cautious. He said, “If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I tell them?” (Exodus 3:13 NLT).

God told him, “I am who I am. Say this to the people of Israel: I am has sent me to you” (verse 14 NLT).

I love that. Moses was effectively saying, “Who am I?”

And the Lord said, “I am who I am.”

In other words, “It is not about you, Moses. It’s about Me. You have all of Me, and I will be with you.”

Before God tells us what we’re supposed to do, He tells us who He is. He will work through us. And He will give us what we need, when we need it.