With or Without.
[Repost] Does this conversation sound like anything you’ve ever conversed with the LORD about? Let me change that, does it resemble the arguing you’ve done with the LORD?
Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you’?”
Then the LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?”
“A staff,” he replied.
The LORD said, “Throw it on the ground.”
Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. Then the LORD said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. “This,” said the LORD, “is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”
Then the LORD said, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous—it had become as white as snow.
“Now put it back into your cloak,” he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh.
Then the LORD said, “If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first sign, they may believe the second. But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground.”
Moses said to the LORD, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”
The LORD said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”
But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”
Then the LORD’s anger burned against Moses and he said, “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. But take this staff in your hand so you can perform the signs with it.” Exodus 4:1-17 NIV
I mean, seriously? Don’t we argue in our hearts and minds with things He puts in there?
Maybe you are a non-believer and you argue with the conviction of God about something in your life that’s prodding you to take a look at His gift of salvation?
Maybe it’s the moment before you decide to accept that gift of salvation. The huge tug-of-war that’s gone on in your heart has just about made it over to the decisive side of saying ‘yes’.
Or maybe it’s everyday thereafter because you’re now in the battle of your life as you have accepted His gift of salvation and there’s a war against you with everything and everybody. Including yourself.
I get this image from the movie KNIGHT and DAY where Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) has been trying to both use and help June (Cameron Diaz). She’s been trying to escape from him and everyone else. They’ve come to a heated argument and now, standing by a car, Roy is telling June just how safe she is with him (as he holds his hand out horizontally and up high) and how safe she is not, without him (as he holds the same hand out horizontally but in a low position).
That scene is one of my favorite parts of the movie and it sticks with me both seriously and humorously. (Mind you, I close my eyes on at least one scene in the movie. The rest, thankfully is supported by fantasy and not as troubling as that one scene. Ick.) Of course, Roy has always got this. And then, the tide changes and … well …it’s not the movie I’m talking about here, but the life-application I pick up in it with those verses and these thoughts.
I’m studying the Book of James with Beth Moore in James – Mercy Triumphs. In Week Four, Day Three she brings Exodus 4:12 into focus. Which verse is that? The one that says:
“Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”
It’s the will teach you what to say that blew me away. There, God is not just telling Moses what to say but teaching him what to say. Huge difference. Do I need my mind and heart for this? Can I see that in my life? Am I a good student? Yes. Yes. Yes, and no. Am I with God? Or without God?
Then, in Week Five, Day Three, Moore has us draw a diagram. Mine is below. Oh my. Wow.
Can you see it well enough? There’s a line suspended between the Devil and Me, and Me and God. There’s an arrow with a question designating which way I’ll go leading from me to the Devil and then from me towards God. This is based on James 4:7 NIV which says:
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Adding the image of the movie to the line? Am I with God? Or without Him?
Those smudges above the line are on purpose. They have something to do with what Moore asked us to do. The point she’s making and I’m asking myself (and you can ask yourself): Have I made up my mind? Have I been deliberate about it? Am I vacillating? Why? What do I need to do to be deliberate about this choice of going with God? Initially in accepting His gift of salvation or generally? Submitting to Him? Every day. Each step of my day. Do I realize that God teaches me, for my own good, and in what to say? Huh? How ’bout it, Jenn? Are you with God? Or without Him on these things? Which direction are ya going?
