“I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you”
(Exodus 3:12).
FORTY YEARS after having killed an Egyptian, Moses was working as a shepherd for his father-in-law Jethro.Having been raised as the «son of Pharaoh’s daughter» he now led a flock through the desert. And there, while performing his ordinary
tasks in life, he received the call to perform an extraordinary job: “The cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt» (Exodus 3:9, 10).
Go to Pharaoh? Bring Israel out of Egypt? Impossible! Moses immediately began to come up with great excuses. The first one was, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?» (verse 11, NIV). As we can see, Moses understands that the problem does not lie with God or the mission, but with himself. “I am Moses, who killed a man. I am the same man whom my fellow countrymen rebuked, saying, ‘Who made you a prince and a judge over us?’ (see Exodus 2:14). I am the Moses Pharaoh tried to kill».
And what did God reply to the question of “Who am I?” He replied with these words: “I will certainly be with you” (Exodus 3:12). It’s as if the Lord told Moses, «You’re right, you are a nobody, you are incompetent; I know. But this is not about you, it’s about Me. You will go, and bring My people out, because I will be with you» The success of the mission does not depend on Moses’s plan, but on the fact that the great I AM would be by his side. Moses’s greatness does not rest on him, it rests on the fact that God will be with him. And that promise was “an assurance of protection” for Moses.*
Like Moses, perhaps we feel we are called to perform a task that greatly exceeds our abilities. But who can say they are completely ready to meet the demands of God’s calling? Although He knows about our great deficiencies, the Lord invites us to take part in His work. Why? Because He wants us to experience for ourselves what Moses experienced: for His presence to be with us.
*Nahum M. Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), p. 17.
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Taken from: Devotional Readings for Adults 2023
“I AM WITH YOU”
From: J. VLADIMIR POLANCO
Collaborators: Lorina Maya & Avineyda Hernandez
