Today’s passage is Exodus 4:10-17. Moses angers God by telling him that he doesn’t want to go, making the excuse that he doesn’t speak well. God says to send Aaron and tell him what to say. God says Aaron will be Moses’ mouth.
Why does Moses keep making excuses?
Why is Aaron not going to refuse?
“I will be with your mouth”(12)
This phrase occurs twice in today’s passage (12, 15). Mentions of mouth, speaking, tongue, words dominate. Moses is ordered to go talk, but he disobeys by making excuses.
Pastor Kim Yang Jay’s Sunday sermon about obedience was in my mind as I read about Moses’ disobedience.
Even when God said he would be with Moses’ mouth and that he had made “man’s mouth”(11), Moses still baulked. What a start to the career of the Bible’s greatest prophet!
I felt just like him today.
It was a day of lurching from one problem to the next, none of them solved.
I did not want to be principal of my school today.
I didn’t know what to say to anyone. I needed God’s mouth, not mine, but all I seemed to have was mine, and all it seemed to do was stutter.
It began with an accusing email from my daughter’s mother.
Had I told her that our daughter would go to hell unless she believed in Jesus?
For once, I didn’t rush to answer.
Then I had to deal with a teacher’s spat with an insolent student and rewrite her letter to his parents.
I had to spend an hour arguing with a mother wanting permission for her high school daughter to drop a class because she, after just five weeks, only has 89%!
Then I had to begin to clarify what my students do for community service and craft the method of conveying this to parents who had taken a few details and worried themselves into viewing the good work many students do as inappropriate and dangerous.
Then I had to find out why there was a problem with my sports coaches and call a meeting to clarify and re-create school policy concerning many items in our program.
In between I had to find out what our Korean insurance policies actually covered for our sports teams and coaches and what the school liability was.
A teacher was away in the afternoon, so I had to substitute for one of her classes.
I also had to ensure the high school was ready for their Sports Day tomorrow.
I missed lunch. I listened to the high school administrator and the vice principal about what they dealt with and what I will now have to deal with on Wednesday.
I forgot to pray until I left school to go swimming.
When I got off the bus going home tonight after meeting my wife and going to the builder of our house for a three hour consultation, I fell to the sidewalk like a drunk man. And I didn’t want to get up.
Application: To pray for God’s mouth before I start my school day.
Lord, let me not yield to the desire to shirk my responsibilities but diligently seek to do your will.
