“But Moses said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.”
– Exodus 4:13
That’s a short verse that has significant implications for who we are, who God is, and how we pray and what God calls us to do. Let me read it one more time. Exodus 4:13, “But Moses said, ‘Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.” Now, that statement from Moses to God follows on Moses saying to God, “God, I can’t do what you’re calling me to do.”
He says, “I’m slow of speech and of talking. I can’t speak to Pharaoh and call him to let the people of Israel go. I can’t do that.” And God looks back at him and says, “Who gave you your mouth? Who enables you to speak? That’s me.” And the implication is, God’s saying, “I will equip you for everything I call you to.” Yet even right after God says this to Moses, Moses still looks back at God and says, “I don’t want to do what you’ve called me to do. Send somebody else.”
God’s Strength Over Our Situation
And how easy is it for us to have the same mentality in so many different ways? One, to doubt that God will give us what we need to do, that which He calls us to do. All right, how tempting is it for you and me? And this could be on a daily basis, just in the job God has given you, and the situation God has put you in, and something God is calling you to, whatever it might be, to think “I can’t do this.”
And in a sense, that’s healthy, because the reality is, in a John 15:5 kind of way, you’re right. I’m right. Whenever we think that we can’t do it, there is nothing, listen to this really closely, there is nothing God calls you or me to do that we can do in our own power, with our own resources, in our own strength. That’s why Jesus says, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.”
Exodus 4:13 Thanks God for Overcoming Our Weaknesses
But the key words are, apart from me. So yes, left to ourselves, we all have weaknesses. We are incompetent in a very real sense. I look at my life, there’s no way I can be the husband God has called me to be, the dad God has called me to be, the pastor God has called me to be, the man God has called me to be. There’s nothing on my list of things to do today or tomorrow that I can do apart from the grace and the help and the mercy of God, and I feel that. I feel that every day, and I’m trusting you do too. If not, that’s pride before God to think you can do what He’s calling you to do on your own. You can’t.
But the beauty is, He is the great I Am, and He has given you everything you need and will. He promises to give you everything you need. This is Jesus in Matthew 6 saying, “Don’t worry about tomorrow. My mercies will help you through tomorrow, just like my mercies will help you through today.” And yet we’re still prone to say, “I don’t want to do it.” We’re still prone to turn away from what God is calling us to do.
So, let’s pray in light of this tendency, not just in Moses’ mouth and life, but in our own hearts, God, we pray that you would help us to do all that you call us to do. We pray that you would keep us from saying, “Please send someone else. Somebody else to do this.” God, we trust that you are all wise, you are all sovereign, you are all good, that you have put us where we are right now.
God With Us through Trials
God, I just pray that over every single person listening as they are facing trials, as they’re facing challenges, as they’re walking through difficulties, I pray that they would know that you are with them in the middle of that, that there is nothing they can do in the middle of that on their own. But with you, with your power, with your strength, with your joy, with your peace, with your wisdom, with your resources, with your help, that they can do, and are designed to do, all that you’ve called them to do.
So, God keep us from saying to you, “Please send somebody else,” which God, I’ll confess, and along with others, say we are prone to do. I have thought many times over this last year, “Somebody else can do this, or that.” God, I praise you for your love for me, your love for us, your wisdom, and for the situations you put us in that make us totally dependent upon you, and for your faithfulness to give us all we need in those situations.
Exodus 4:13 Prays for God’s Strength to be Shared
So God, on a global scale, as we pray continually for unreached people in the world today, the Devanga people in India, 0% believing the gospel, of hundreds of thousands of people. God, send any one of us, we pray, not somebody else. Send any one of us, we pray. God, we pray that whoever you call to go to the Devanga and 7,000 other people groups, that we would go, and we would go in the strength you provide. God, we praise you that you don’t leave us alone in our own resources to do that which you have called us to do, that you equip us, you enable us, you empower us to do everything you’ve called us to do.
And so we look to you today and we say, “Help us, help us in every way.” And we trust that you will provide everything we need to do every bit of what you’ve called us to do. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
