So He said, “I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
Exodus 3:12 NKJV
My husband would tell you that I am the most indecisive person he knows. And he’s probably right. I have a hard time making deciscions, because I know I’m going to have to live with that decision. So I want to make sure it is absolutely, positively, 100%, without-a-doubt the RIGHT decision. I agonize over every detail until I’m blue in the face, wishing some sign from heaven would show me which choice is the best. And usually in the end, it probaly wouldn’t have mattered if I went with the blue earrings or the silver ones.
Okay, so maybe that was a bit of a dramatic example. But it’s hard to step out and make a decision you know you’re going to have to live with. So sometimes, it feels easier to just not make a decision. We want a sign, a confirmation, before we commit to something. We want to know that it’s the RIGHT something to commit to. I’m willing to bet there are many out there who can relate. And I’m also willing to bet that, like me, there are many reading this now who do the same thing to God.
God speaks to us in so many ways. The main way He speaks to us should be through His word. That means that we should be in the Word enough that He can speak to us through it, and that we should filter anything we think He’s saying to us through His word (see more about that in this post about the movement of the Spirit).
But He also speaks to us through people, through situations, through music, through His creation, etc. Sometimes we can hear a very clear voice in our heads. Sometimes it’s a picture or a gut feeling from the Holy Spirit. Sometimes it’s conviction, sometimes a new understanding of how He’s moving in your life. Sometimes it’s clarity of a situation or passage of Scripture you’ve been struggling with. And sometimes, God speaks to us with commands and callings.
We would think it’d be easy to respond to these kinds of encounters with God. As obedient followers, we think it should be easy to say “yes”. We couldn’t imagine God calling us to something difficult or uncomfortable. But usually, that’s exactly what He’s calling us to. And so we want to know that it’s absolutely, positively, 100%, without-a-doubt a sure thing that this is from Him. We need a sign.
A Different Kind of Sign
When Jesus appeard to Moses in the burning bush, He wasn’t coming to say, “hey, Mo, wassup?” God was giving Moses His calling. It wasn’t necessarily a new calling; in Acts 7:25, we’re told that Moses probably had a good idea that God would deliver the Israelites through him. Well, God was saying, “all right, Mo, it’s time.” And Moses was chomping at the bit to get down to Egypt and carry out God’s commands, right?
Well…no. Not exactly. It was more like, Moses was scared out of His mind. And if you’re familiar with the story, you’ll know that he asked God for multiple signs and confirmations before he was convinced this was the right thing to do. Don’t get me wrong, it is GOOD to confirm that it’s the Lord speaking to you. But given Moses’ situation, I think it would have been pretty obvious that it was God speaking. And even though I doubt God has appeared to any of us through a burning bush, there are times when it should be almost just as obvious to us too.
So, like Moses, we are apt to ask for redundant signs; signs that this is from God, signs that we will be successful, signs that Pharaoh isn’t going to mumify us alive…the usual, of course.
But in all his searching for confirmation, Moses completely ignored one simple promise God gave to him. And that promise is found in Exodus 3:12:
So He said, “I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
Exodus 3:12 NKJV
“I will certainly be with you.” Wow. That in itself is amazing. The God who called Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God who saved Noah from the flood He sent to wipe out mankind from the earth. The God who created the entire universe. The God who was burning in a bush, yet the bush was not consumed, here before Moses’ very eyes…He was going to be with Moses. Certainly. Not “probably”. Not “if you do everything the right way.” Certainly. Absolutely. Positively. 100%. Without-a-doubt.
But wait! There’s more.
God promised Moses a sign: he would return to this mountain and serve God.
Wait a minute…how can that be a sign? It wouldn’t come until after Moses completed this task.
Exactly.
The Takeaway
You see, sometimes God calls us to step out in faith and obedience without being shown a sign. He wants us to trust Him to bring us through, to make us successful, to protect us…to keep His promises to us. And then, He will bring us confirmation. Isn’t that wild? He will always bring us confirmation, just not always in the way we want it.
I know. That can be really scary though. No wonder Moses kept making excuses and asking for miraculous proofs. We have the same tendency, don’t we? We forget that God promises to never leave us (Hebrews 13:5b). We don’t want to be uncomfortable. We don’t want to do hard things. Stepping out in faith like that can seem unfathomable.
And yet, I’m sure anyone who has done so can attest to this: God has never disappointed. God has never let them down. Isaiah 28:16 is referenced at least three times in the New Testament. It says: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame”. God is speaking of sending Jesus. Whoever puts their hope and trust in Jesus will not be humiliated.
And Moses wasn’t. In Exodus 19, the Israelites come to the Wilderness of Sinai, the same place that God appeared to Moses in the burning bush. And there, Moses serves God and receives the Ten Commandments from Him. God is SO faithful! Even when Moses failed and the Israelites complained, God still kept His promise.
This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, We shall also live with Him. If we endure, We shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.
2 Timothy 2:13 NKJV
God will not let us down. We don’t need a sign or miraculous confirmation to be sure of that. So the next time we are called to step out in faith, or have a difficult decision to make, we can rest in knowing that God is faithful. Absolutely. Positively. 100%. Without-a-doubt.
