All Scripture is inspired by God. Scripture is useful to teach us and it convicts us of what is right. Scripture straightens out our thinking, and it trains us in knowing and doing what it right. (2 Timothy 3:16) With this foundation, my inspiration today comes from Exodus 3.
“Then the Lord said, ‘I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey…. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.’”
Exodus 3:7-10 ESV
We are often comforted by God’s word to know that God sees our afflictions; He hears our cries; and He responds. We find comfort in this passage from Exodus that God sees, God hears, God knows, and God responds. This is undeniable, but it isn’t the primary purpose of Scripture.
If we only take away the fact that God sees us, hears us, knows us, and responds to us from this passage, we are missing the bigger picture. The purpose of Scripture is not primarily to comfort us. If you read 2 Timothy 3:16, which I paraphrased at the beginning of this article, it describes the primary purpose of Scripture, and the description does not include providing comfort to us.
Yes, Scripture is comforting to us, and we take great comfort in it as we should. That is part of having faith in and trusting God. The primary purpose of scripture, however, is not to comfort us, but to instruct us, to straighten out our thinking, to give us a new perspective, and to train us in what is right according to 2 Timothy 3:16.
In the passage from Exodus 3 quoted above, we are comforted to understand that God sees the afflictions of His people, hears their cries and knows their suffering, and God responds, but we should not miss that God responds through Moses who God calls to carry out His response. The focus of the story is God calling on Moses to carry out God’s response to what God sees, hears, and knows.
God’s could theoretically respond directly with some miracle that accomplishes His purposes, but He doesn’t do it that way. He chooses to involve people (us) in His plans and purposes.
I don’t know why He relies on us. We are not very reliable. We are stubborn. We are unfaithful. We are deaf and hard-hearted. We are self-interested, distracted, and absorbed with doing our own thing. (If this sounds like judgment, it’s actually more like a confession – like conviction, which is one of the express purposes of Scripture in 2 Timothy.)
Perhaps, the primary reason that God relies upon us to see, hear, know and respond is because He desires for us to be engaged with Him in His creative and redemptive process. He is so invested in that idea that He has staked everything on it. As Paul says,
“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!'”
Romans 10:14-15
I don’t know why God chooses to limit Himself in this way. I don’t know why God relies upon us when we are so unreliable, but He does. He relies on you and me to carry out His response to the afflictions and the cries, the oppression and the suffering in the world – especially for His people.
Lest we think that God is only interested in the people called by His name, however, we should not forget the parable of the Good Samaritan. We should not forget that God so loved the world that He sent His only Son into the world to be crucified for the sins of all mankind – everyone who would turn to Him – and he died while we were yet sinners. He did not wait for us to be cleaned up and to become his children before he was willing to go and die for us.
We commonly find ourselves on both sides of the equation. We all have afflictions, and we cry out for God’s response in our afflictions. It certainly isn’t wrong for us to be concerned about our own pain, suffering, and oppression that we experience but, we are also called by God to respond to the afflictions, cries, and suffering of other people. As God knows their suffering, He desires that we know their suffering and engage Him in responding.
God looks for people who are willing to see, willing to hear, and willing to respond. He looks for people who can be called His children because they respond to His call and do as God prompts them. God has put us in this world and called us not to be served but to serve. The greatest among us are the greatest servants, said Jesus.
If we say that we know God, but we do not see people in their suffering, hear their cries, and know their need as God knows their need, how well do we really know God? We say that we have faith, but faith without a response to the God of our faith is not true faith.
What good is it if we see a brother or sister without food or clothes and merely wish them well? What good is a faith with nothing of substance to show for it? (James 2:14-16) How can we call ourselves sons and daughters, children of God, if we do not begin to think like Him and become like Him?
True faith sees, hears, and responds. True knowledge of God is expressed in responding to the afflictions, cries, and suffering of other people the way God does. We should pray, but our prayers should also lead us to do something as we are prompted by God.
“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
James 1:27
Moses saw the burning bush that was not burned up in the fire. That sight attracted the attention of Moses, and he responded by “turning aside.” (Exodus 3:3) Moses could have shrugged and kept going, but he didn’t. He stopped and turned aside.
We should not miss in this passage the fact that God waited for Moses to notice, and God waited for Moses to turn aside. God waited for Moses to stop doing what he was doing and to engage in what he saw.
Moses didn’t even know it yet, but he was responding to the God of his ancestors. Moses had to ask God for his name because he didn’t know God yet. We forget that Moses was not raised among the Hebrews in Egypt. He was raised in the Pharaoh’s household. He may not even have known God who was talking to him at that time.
As for those of us who have had encounters with God and know Him in some way, how often do we take fleeting notice of something that catches our attention? how often do we not turn aside from what we are doing? How many times have you been prompted to notice someone in their pain and suffering, accompanied by a thought that you should do something, and you keep going on doing what you are doing?
I am not picking on you, because I am thinking of myself as I write these things. Scripture is intended to get personal. It is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating to the heart – if we let it.
If Moses had not stopped what he was doing or had not turned aside, what would have happened? We don’t know, but I think we should take notice of the sequence. God did not engage Moses until he stopped what he was doing and turned aside.
I think we can draw the conclusion that God waits for us to see. He waits for us to turn aside from what we are doing, and God engages us as we respond to what He desires for us to do.
We should also understand that God has plans and purposes for us – for each one of us. He is not content to allow us merely to be comforted and to live our lives in comfort and purposelessness. Our God is a Comforter and a God of purpose, and He desires us to engage with Him in what He is doing in the world.
What are you doing? What are God’s purposes and plans for you? I am not God, but I suspect that God may be looking to attract your attention – just as I believe He is speaking the same thing to me about me.
I will end by pointing out that Moses was out doing something. Yes, he was going about whatever his own business was, but he was out in the world actively doing something when God caught his attention, and he turned aside. If Moses had been sitting in his tent wondering about his purpose in life, he would have never seen the burning bush.
Moses may (or may not) have been seeking God in that moment. We don’t know, but he was responsive when God caught his attention by the burning bush. The one thing we can all do today is to resolve to be responsive.
I doubt any of us will be approached by God with a burning bush. The plans and purposes God has for us are likely not to be on the magnitude of his intentions for Moses. Nevertheless, God does have plans or purposes for you. That’s what His word says, if you have the faith to believe it.
We do not need to understand fully the plans and purposes God has for us before we can start doing what God wants us to do. In fact, it seems that God often withholds that kind of information from us. If God told us exactly what to expect, we would probably not believe it, just as Moses struggled with the details God was telling him
The “sign” that God gave to Moses to assure him was that Moses and the people would worship God on a particular mountain after they were delivered from Egypt. (Exodus 3:12) We often only see God’s hand clearly in our lives when we look back. God wants us to trust Him in the meantime.
Will you trust him today and respond? I hope you will join me in saying, “Yes,” and being willing. We believe, O God, but help us in our unbelief!
