From Burning Bush to Blank Page
I do not feel that I was “born” a writer. A “love-hate relationship” perfectly describes my writing experience. I love it once a blog or article is finished, but I hate the process of getting there. On rare occasions a blog “writes itself” – the ideas flow quickly and clearly. However, the vast majority are slogs, an ultra-marathon, or the travail of maternal labor. Writing and editing require hard work, but the emotional turmoil they stir is the worst.
Every time I sit down to write, there is a persistent “voice” in my head that taunts: “You can’t do this! You don’t know what you want to say! You will never get this right!” Whether my writing assignment takes hours or days to write, the incessant mental din is exhausting. The temptation to procrastinate or simply quit feels overwhelming. Like Moses at the Burning Bush in Exodus 3, I plead, “Please, Lord, now send the message by whomever You will…” in other words, not by me!
Just as Moses rehearsed his inadequacies – “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue” (Exodus 4:10) – I do, likewise. “Lord,” I find myself bemoaning, “It took years for me to learn to read. I’m still a plodding reader and my spelling is terrible. From my youth writing has been torture. Ideas tangle in my brain; organizing them on paper is hopeless!”
Moses gives voice to my internal anguish, but it is God’s voice that quells it. As I tumble deeper into the abyss of my inadequacies, I “hear” God’s response to Moses: “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” (Exodus 4:11).
God did not tell Moses, “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You are not all that bad.” Instead, God affirmed that the inadequacies Moses lamented are of God’s design! Whether Moses or me, God makes no mistakes in creating us or calling us into His service.
The only way to stop my natural spiral into the pit of self-loathing with every writing assignment is to remember and repent. I remember God’s response to Moses and confess leaving God out of my sinful self-evaluation. “Lord,” I confess, “I’m focused on me again!”
I then repent by rehearsing the truth: “Weaknesses are not a mistake to be distained, but part of who God made me to be.”
Finally, I firmly embrace forgiveness: “Thank You, Lord, that in Messiah I stand before you forgiven and cleansed!”
The final step of my repentance – putting pen to paper (or fingers to computer keyboard) and words on the page – requires looking away from Moses and looking to Abraham as my example.
As with Moses, God also told Abraham He would do the impossible through him, “‘Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be’” (Genesis 15:5). However, unlike Moses – whose response was to convince God he had the wrong man – the Scriptures tell us in the following verse: “Then he (Abraham) believed in the Lord; and He (the Lord) reckoned it to him as righteousness” (15:6). Abraham’s (and Sarah’s) God-given inability to father a son was overcome by Abraham’s faith in the One who makes no mistakes.
So, with Abraham as my model, I continue to say “yes” to writing opportunities. By faith I bring to God my temptation to despair, rather than focusing on it myself. And… it is by faith I choose to believe that even if the final product is not all that I wished it would be (which it never is), God is honored by my trust in Him and will use my steps of faith as He desires to bring Him glory.
Maybe your struggle is not writing, but another area of self-doubt. I want to encourage you that God can accomplish the impossible in our service to Him despite our inadequacies.
This blog is proof!
May the Lord use it to quiet your “inner Moses” and fan the flame of Abraham-like faith. Imagine what God can accomplish in and through you by trusting Him, the One who makes no mistakes!
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Messiah Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)
Written by Dan, Life in Messiah Board Member
Where do you most often hear your own “inner Moses” saying, “Send someone else”?
In what ways might God use your imperfect “yes” to draw others – whether it be the Jewish people or your Gentile neighbors and friends – closer to His heart?
How might fear of inadequacy or self-doubt keep believers silent about God’s heart for the Jewish people today? And in what ways is sharing the message of our Messiah with the Jewish people an act of faith and obedience rather than “personal qualification”?